Bitcoin dropped 3.6 percent to $5,699 as of 4:41 p.m. in Hong Kong, paring a drop of as much as 5.9 percent.
If you've been around watching the price of BTC for the last few years a drop of 6% is nothing. We had bigger price drops when they arrested Ross Ulbricht, even though it had nothing to do with blockchain and BTC beside the fact that he had a lot of coins stashed.
A major upgrade and a fork with such minor price movement is a sign that bitcoin is becoming more stable.
Topic: [2017-10-25] Bitcoin retreats as another offshoot of cryptocurrency appears (Read 1752 times)
October 25, 2017, 12:24:19 PM
October 25, 2017, 10:10:07 AM
First there was bitcoin, then bitcoin cash — and now there’s bitcoin gold.
A new iteration of the cryptocurrency has been formed after some developers split the blockchain, the digitized ledger on which the bitcoin is based. Called bitcoin gold, the offshoot comes less than three months after bitcoin cash was created.
Bitcoin dropped 3.6 percent to $5,699 as of 4:41 p.m. in Hong Kong, paring a drop of as much as 5.9 percent. The cryptocurrency is still up 37 percent this month and 499 percent this year.
While independence from any central authority is part of bitcoin’s appeal, that’s also made it more susceptible to such so-called “hard forks” when there are differing visions within the cryptocurrency community. Bitcoin gold aside, bitcoin miners and developers have been embroiled in a debate lately over an upgrade of its protocol that’s aimed at speeding up transactions. A lack of consensus is threatening yet another schism next month.
“Bitcoin’s recent downturn has been driven by the traders’ anticipation of minor disarray in the wake of the upcoming hard forks,” said Thomas Glucksmann, Hong Kong-based head of marketing at cryptocurrency exchange Gatecoin Ltd. “The bitcoin exchange and wallet community has been divided over their decisions to support or reject these contentious hard forks.”
Bitcoin gold’s main innovation makes it easier for people without special hardware to mine the digital asset, according to its website. Instead of powerful mining machines called ASICs used in bitcoin, users can mine it with standard gaming graphics cards, similar to how mining is done with ethereum, the website says. After the split, bitcoin owners stand to receive one bitcoin gold for each bitcoin, assuming their wallets or exchanges support the new creation, it said.
Further splits may be imminent. One faction of the community wants to increase bitcoin’s blocksize in order to shorten transaction times, while another is opposed. The first phase of this plan, called SegWit2x, was implemented in August and took some of the data off the main network.
Source
A new iteration of the cryptocurrency has been formed after some developers split the blockchain, the digitized ledger on which the bitcoin is based. Called bitcoin gold, the offshoot comes less than three months after bitcoin cash was created.
Bitcoin dropped 3.6 percent to $5,699 as of 4:41 p.m. in Hong Kong, paring a drop of as much as 5.9 percent. The cryptocurrency is still up 37 percent this month and 499 percent this year.
While independence from any central authority is part of bitcoin’s appeal, that’s also made it more susceptible to such so-called “hard forks” when there are differing visions within the cryptocurrency community. Bitcoin gold aside, bitcoin miners and developers have been embroiled in a debate lately over an upgrade of its protocol that’s aimed at speeding up transactions. A lack of consensus is threatening yet another schism next month.
“Bitcoin’s recent downturn has been driven by the traders’ anticipation of minor disarray in the wake of the upcoming hard forks,” said Thomas Glucksmann, Hong Kong-based head of marketing at cryptocurrency exchange Gatecoin Ltd. “The bitcoin exchange and wallet community has been divided over their decisions to support or reject these contentious hard forks.”
Bitcoin gold’s main innovation makes it easier for people without special hardware to mine the digital asset, according to its website. Instead of powerful mining machines called ASICs used in bitcoin, users can mine it with standard gaming graphics cards, similar to how mining is done with ethereum, the website says. After the split, bitcoin owners stand to receive one bitcoin gold for each bitcoin, assuming their wallets or exchanges support the new creation, it said.
Further splits may be imminent. One faction of the community wants to increase bitcoin’s blocksize in order to shorten transaction times, while another is opposed. The first phase of this plan, called SegWit2x, was implemented in August and took some of the data off the main network.
Source
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