Bitcoin Cash (BCH) – the most popular hardfork of Bitcoin (BTC)’s blockchain – is up over 117% this week, outperforming Bitcoin’s still sizable 15% rise. As of this writing, its the only coin to see anything close to 2X gains within that time frame.
What’s attracting traders and investors to the large-blocker network? Let’s dive in.
Bitcoin Cash’s seismic gains began on June 21, precisely when the Wall Street-backed crypto exchange EDX Markets (EDXM) went live.
Announced in September 2022, the exchange – backed by Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Charles Schwab – promised: “a platform that can meet the needs of both retail traders and institutional investors with high compliance and security standards.”
Upon launch, the high-profile exchange kept its listing count to a conservative four digital assets. One of them, however, was BCH – which rose to $231 on Tuesday, from just $111 on June 21.
According to crypto market intelligence platform Santiment, BCH was the biggest beneficiary of the EDXM listing compared to the platform’s other coins, including BTC, Ether (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC). “Notably, $BCH has seen a 3-year high in social discussion rates, & volume has easily eclipsed 2023 highs,” the company tweeted on Friday.
Data from Coinglass shows that liquidations for trades involving the coin have also moonshot this week and have mostly impacted short traders, indicating that something of a short squeeze is underway.
Bitcoin Cash’s approval by an exchange backed by Wall Street incumbents may be viewed as tacit approval of the coin’s safe regulatory status compared to other altcoins.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued crypto exchange giants Binance and Coinbase earlier this month for listing many alleged “securities” including large caps coins like Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), and Polygon (MATIC).
The four coins listed have already been granted regulatory safeguards in certain segments of the global crypto market. Canada, for example, imposes a net buy limit on exchange users of $30,000 per year for most cryptocurrencies, but excludes BTC, ETH, LTC, and BCH from that rule.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler has explained that he considers Bitcoin a unique commodity because of its “unique history and creation story.” Bitcoin Cash, however, is a mere fork of Bitcoin’s blockchain code, sharing Bitcoin’s history in terms of how it is issued.
