On Oct. 21, Bitcoin set a new all-time high, rising to 6,199 USD on the Hong Kong cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex; the world’s biggest exchange, accounting for more than 30% of bitcoin trading volume according to data.bitcoinity.org.
Many experts and analysts in the cryptocurrency field believe that this significant growth spurt can be explained by the upcoming SegWit2x hard fork. They believe that investors are buying bitcoin in order to receive an additional coin after the potential hard fork. Additionally, tomorrow could mark the creation of Bitcoin Gold on block 491,407, i.e. another split in the chain.
Alex Sunnarborg, a founding member of the cryptocurrency fund Tetras Capital, disagrees with the above assessment. In an interview with CNBC, he noted that bitcoin investors are betting on the original bitcoin holding its own after the split, hoping that most people will continue to use the original bitcoin and not SegWit2x.
For me, it’s very difficult to say whether bitcoin’s price is currently growing due to the prospect of receiving new coins after the fork, or whether it’s because most people don’t think that the fork will work. Still, I’m pretty sure that in the case of a new hard fork, if the bitcoin community splits into two, roughly equal parts, the price of bitcoin will undergo a significant correction.
