The third week of November has been exciting for the cryptocurrency markets. Perhaps the biggest news is that Bitcoin Cash (BCH) completed its scheduled hard fork on November 15. Due to fundamental disagreements on block size in the BCH community, the major cryptocurrency split into two separate blockchains, called Bitcoin ABC (BCHABC) and Bitcoin SV (BCHSV). ABC is supported by "Bitcoin Jesus" Roger Ver and Jihan Wu, cofounder of mining firm Bitmain. SV is supported by Craig Wright, a computer scientist and entrepreneur who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin (BTC). Exchanges generally see BCHABC as more legitimate, and it has a higher market price than BCHSV. As of today, Bitcoin ACB is ahead of SV in terms of hash rate, number of nodes, and blocks mined. It seems unlikely that the split will be resolved soon.
Here is the rest of the week in review:
The Huobi exchange is executing a grand plan to become the biggest player in the Russian market. The Singapore-based firm opened a Moscow office on Monday, as well as a Russian language call center. The office aims to provide concierge service for big clients, plus support for over-the-counter (OTC) trading and listing. Now Huobi's Russia subsidiary offers commissions under 0.1 percent for high volume, a monthly cash back reward of 20 percent of trading fees, and the ability to buy crypto with rubles on the OTC platform. Huobi's vision requires the Russia government to pass bills on cryptocurrency regulations. Apart from Russia, Huobi is also looking to expand to the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Canada.
A new Wall Street Journal article reports that Erik Voorhees, chief executive of decentralized exchange ShapeShift, and Salt Lending Holdings, a peer-to-peer crypto loan firm, are under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Voorhees, who has called fiat currencies scams, is a vocal critic of regulations in general; he has sat as an insider on Salt's board. The SEC is investigating whether Salt's token sale was an unregistered securities offering, details about insider fundraising, and financial information and risk disclosures. Salt also faces a private lawsuit in Colorado from a former financial officer that alleges unfairly favorable loan terms to insiders and negligence in a February hack. Voorhees is no stranger to SEC scrutiny, having reached a settlement in a 2014 case on an internet gambling company. Salt is also battling financial trouble, as the value of its own tokens have crashed in the bear market.
Crypto prices plummeted this week surrounding the BCH hard fork. Market cap is at $185 billion after a small weekend pop. In the top 100, the biggest losers are HyperCash (HC), down 32 percent, Achain (ACT), down 30 percent, and Syscoin (SYS), down 30 percent. The biggest gainers are Nasdacoin (NSD), up 211 percent, Factom (FCT), up 83 percent, and Novacoin (NVC), up 20 percent. Traders should keep an eye out on the $200 billion resistance level.
The author owns a small amount of BTC.