Altcoin Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is plumbing new lows against Bitcoin (BTC) after crashing through fresh support.
Data from price tickers including Cointelegraph Markets and CoinMarketCap confirm that BCH/BTC is now at its worst levels in Bitcoin Cash’s three-year history.
BCH/BTC in “downward price discovery”
At press time, 1 BCH bought just 0.022 BTC, 92.2% less than at its peak of 0.285 BTC in December 2017.
BCH launched as an off-shoot from BTC in August the same year, at the time enjoying support from various industry figures and businesses. This subsequently began to wane as the altcoin’s popularity failed to compete with Bitcoin’s, leaving a dedicated but vocal group of supporters as its main users.
A subsequent hard fork saw the emergence of Bitcoin SV (BSV) in 2018, accompanied by high-profile infighting characterized by spats between BCH proponent Roger Ver and media mogul Calvin Ayre.
BCH began its most recent downward spiral against BTC in February 2020, after hitting year-to-date highs of 0.44 BTC.
For entrepreneur and commentator Alistair Milne, the outlook for the pair looked bleak, with no discernable buy levels left intact.
“Bcash vs. Bitcoin now in downward price discovery,” he pointed out on Saturday. “No support levels left having hit new ATL’s last week.”
BCH/BTC historical weekly chart. Source: TradingView
Tim Draper: BCH promo deleted after I “did a little more research”
Bitcoin meanwhile remains locked in a battle for market dominance with a surging altcoin scene. On the back of the DeFi movement’s success, BTC now accounts for 55.8% of the total cryptocurrency market cap — its lowest since April 2019.
Despite fluctuations in market presence, however, opinion has long coalesced around Bitcoin over its hard forks, leaving BCH and BSV with little attention.
“To be honest, it looks like a big bubble,” Narek Gevorgyan, CEO of crypto portfolio tracker CoinStats summarized in an online debate.
He added that how BCH remained one of the ten largest cryptocurrencies by market cap was a mystery.
“Literally nobody cares about bcash but it’s still in top 10,” he wrote.
BCH even failed to capitalize on an endorsement from billionaire Tim Draper this month, the latter having tweeted praise of both its properties and Ver himself.
In the event, Draper tagged an account impersonating Ver in his complimentary tweet but confirmed in a subsequent interview that he authored it.
BTC vs. BCH vs. BSV proof-of-work since Bitcoin Cash fork. Source: coin.dance
“I talked to Roger Ver and he did create a token… I didn’t realize that it had a security problem, but… he did create a token that was easily moved,” he said.
“So yeah I did put that tweet in, then I did a little more research and I pulled it off… I admire people who try new things, who do new things, and I’m less religious about one token or another.”
BTC proof-of-work has vastly outpaced BCH and BSV combined since their launch, with the accompanying lack of activity leaving both open to security vulnerabilities, which Draper mentioned.
According to online resource Crypto51, the theoretical current cost of launching a 51% attack for one hour is around 50 times as much in U.S. dollar terms against BCH than BTC — $9,914 versus $554,672. Another “version” of Bitcoin formerly popular, Bitcoin Gold (BTG), can now be compromised for just $312.