Bitcoin Cash (BCH) stumbled on Wednesday after a three-month-long rally before rebounding shortly after as the blockchain completed its second-ever halving — an event where mining rewards are slashed in half.
Bitcoin Cash is a proof-of-work blockchain network and cryptocurrency that was designed to be faster and cheaper to use than Bitcoin (BTC). The first Bitcoin Cash halving event took place on April 8, 2020, with miner rewards dropping from 12.5 BCH to 6.25 BCH.
There has been speculation in the lead-up to the halving, with the price of Bitcoin Cash increasing 147.85% over the past three months and 24% over the past 30 days.
However, in the day leading up to the halving, Bitcoin Cash's price dipped by 9.94%, falling to $572.21, as per CoinMarketCap data. However, after the halving, it quickly bounced back, reaching $604, a spike of approximately 5.5%.
The recent price decline led to liquidations totaling $3.9 million, predominantly affecting long positions at $3.3 million, while short positions accounted for $569,540, as per CoinGlass data.
On March 29, Cointelegraph reported that open interest (OI) in Bitcoin Cash futures perpetual contracts reached all-time highs of $708.75 million.
At the time of publication, the OI has continued its ascent, surging even further to $799.23 million.
Meanwhile, one X user "DavidShares" explained to his 17,500 followers that many miners had already switched over to mining Bitcoin ahead of the halving.
He also noted that hash rates have declined since the halving. The network has now validated 840,004 blocks, indicating just four blocks have been validated since the halving event, as per Bitcoin Unlimited data.
In 2017, Bitcoin Cash forked off from Bitcoin due to a group of the community disagreeing over ways of scaling up and decreasing transaction fees to adjust for the growing demand.
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Just two years later, it split again which led to controversy amongst the mining community as several had not upgraded to the new chain, resulting in a wasteful allocation of resources.
In November 2019, Cointelegraph reported that miners spent resources mining 14 empty blocks on the old chain that the majority of the Bitcoin Cash network already considered invalid and rejected.
Meanwhile, he highly anticipated Bitcoin halving is scheduled to take place on April 20, just 16 days from now.
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