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ow much did Bitcoin prices rise after hard fork? Here is a look.
Bitcoin, a concept that’s been around for nearly a decade now, is only now really gaining popularity as every Tom, Dick and Harry is becoming techno-savvy. The rising popularity has obviously led to a lot of drama in the past few months. As if that wasn’t enough, the drama has escalated with two opinions by major backers of the cryptocurrency as to how things are to be done.
What's the "hard fork"?
The "hard fork" is the division of the Bitcoin community, like a fork in the road, into two ways of taking the technology forward. The need for an update is due to the sudden surge in popularity, increasing the Bitcoin prices from $900 at the start of this year to a whopping $2500 now. This has led to the reduction in speed of transactions, which makes the Bitcoin transactions take hours as against the seconds it takes for, say Visa transactions.
The community is now divided as to how to solve this problem, into two rival proposals: Segwit2x and Bitcoin Cash. Currently, transactions take place in what’s known as a "block", and happens when a block is added into a "blockchain". The problem is, a block is limited to a mere 1 MB every 10 minutes. Segwit2x proposes to create a parallel block, but Bitcoin Cash proposes to increase the size of a block to 8 MB.
Two Options
To prevent a virtual "civil war", they agreed to disagree and split into two. We don’t know what the consequences will be yet in the long term, but in the short term, the prices are fluctuating royally. The prices of the bitcoin will, however, depend largely on which version is being used. The Segwit2x way was the general consensus and the prices rose for this, but they dropped to a great extent as far as Bitcoin Cash was concerned, as it wasn’t very popular. But now, both versions are gaining popularity, so it’s anybody’s guess as to where this will eventually lead.
