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Bitcoin – Bears Dig In as Hash Power Heads for the Door

By:
Bob Mason
Published: Nov 17, 2018, 02:44 UTC

It's going from bad to worse for the Bitcoin bulls, a fall to $5,400 levels making a dive to sub-$5,000 and ever more real prospect.

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The Bitcoin reversal continued on Friday, with Bitcoin falling by 1.63%, off the back of Thursday’s 2.94% fall, to end the day at $5,655.7.

A 3rd consecutive day in the red, not only left Bitcoin locked in at $5,000 levels, but also down 12.29% for the week, Monday through Friday, quite a slide following weeks in the tight ranges.

Bearish through the morning, Bitcoin fell from a start of a day intraday high $5,777.5 to a late morning intraday low $5,530.9 before finding support, the moves through the day leaving the major support and resistance levels untested.

The latest Bitcoin Cash hard fork had even the Bitcoin bulls revising projected year-end prices, with a rise in buying interest for Bitcoin Cash SV weighing on Bitcoin and the broader market through the day.

While Bitcoin and a string of other crypto majors suffered through the week, there were some that fared better than others, with Ripple’s XRP overtaking Ethereum to take the number 2 spot by market cap, more moderate losses through the week supporting the move, as the markets consider the possible effects of market disruption on the respective coins. For the Ripple team, continued success has seen volatility ease to support the move into the number 2 spot, with the next target for Ripple’s XRP being Bitcoin’s coveted number 1 position.

For the broader market, the total market cap and Bitcoin’s dominance held relatively steady ahead of the weekend, with the total market cap sitting at $182.82bn and Bitcoin’s dominance sitting at 52.9%.

Of greater interest may be the respective hast rates, with Bitcoin’s hash rate having been on a downward trend this month, falling from an end of October 57.883E to 42.7995E on Friday. For Bitcoin Cash, the hash rate as jumped from an end of October 3.3068E to 7.8116E on Friday, an all-time high for Bitcoin Cash.

The jump in hash rates is reportedly coming from support for Bitcoin Cash ABC, with cash.coin.dance reporting that the last 14 blocks were mined by Bitcoin Cash ABC miners, Bitcoin.com and BTC.com taking the lions share with 8 and 4 blocks respectively, Antpool and ViaBTC mining the remaining 2.

It’s in stark contrast to earlier blocks mined that had provided some support to the market fear that Bitcoin SV could garner greater support from miners, with Bitcoin SV receiving plenty of hash power to battle Bitcoin ABC from the hard fork.

The blocks mined give Bitcoin Cash ABC the longest chain, at the time of writing and, while the price of Bitcoin Cash SV has been on the rise, its hash rates and blocks mined that matter…

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At the time of writing, Bitcoin 0.99% to $5,599.5, with the Bitcoin bears remaining in firm control going into the weekend, early moves seeing Bitcoin fall from a start of a day morning high $5,655.7 to a morning low $5,592.3 before steadying.

While the day’s major support and resistance levels have been left untested early on, the sour taste left with the cryptomarket, following Thursday’s fork, has reinvigorated the bears, with the latest fork showing just how much at risk the likes of Bitcoin are to a 51% attacks from the Bitcoin mining Cartel, with its proof-of-work consensus giving the Bitcoin miners a significant amount of influence on Bitcoin’s evolution.

With miners more interested in block size to support revenue streams from the mining farms built in recent years, it’s perhaps of little surprise that Bitcoin is not finding its usual amount of support, though some of this does come from the shift in hash power to support Bitcoin Cash ABC.

The dust will need to settle to see whether Bitcoin can recover from the latest pullback and attract the hash power and capital inflows, bullish year-end price forecasts that have been slashed in the wake of the latest crypto hard fork, suggesting a rebound before the end of the year.

BTC/USD 17/11/18 Daily Chart

About the Author

Bob Masonauthor

With over 20 years of experience in the finance industry, Bob has been managing regional teams across Europe and Asia and focusing on analytics across both corporate and financial institutions. Currently he is covering developments relating to the financial markets, including currencies, commodities, alternative asset classes, and global equities.

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