TL;DR: Cryptocurrency markets are settling after a few wild, crazy nights: double digit gains have flattened, and some believe at least a new bottom has been reached, if not outright retracement back down altogether. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) led the way up dramatically, and is still in the green, however. Is it just because of speculative mania, or is there more to BCH?

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Why Bitcoin Cash is Leading the Crypto Spring

Maybe it’s a tad too early to call it a Crypto Spring or even to suggest market bottoms were found and bested. The very short-term trend is seductive. Nearly every top ten crypto by market cap has done well recently. And as of this writing, they’re seeing red. In fact of that top ten, only Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash remain up, with BTC seeing its price rest at almost exactly $5,000 for now.

It might be of interest to note LTC and BCH are touted as payment coins, and maybe the market is beginning to value mediums-of-exchange. Indeed, for BTC supremacists, they’ll often suggest LTC when things get rough over at the mempool — heck, LTC’s sponsored a Ultimate Fighting Championship card, so their marketing is on point. However, Bitcoin Cash skyrocketed, passing all coins, at one point doubling its price over the last couple of days. And while LTC did well, BCH dominated. By comparison, BCH gets a giant amount of politics thrown its way, and is routinely attacked from all sides. How can it be that coin alone could possibly lead such a rally? Isn’t everyone convinced EOS is the way? XRP has proof of Ashton Kutcher (PoAK)! Seriously, why BCH?

For sure, it could just be animal spirits in the way Keynes described, rushing hordes in and out of positions for no other reason than others are doing the same … a frustrating feedback loop of nonsense. Yet even mainstream and the normally reticent crypto press have begun to take notice. Forbes‘ Charles Bovaird noted, “fundamental drivers,” such as Bitcoin Cash’s SLP tokenization and its adoption push with regard to travel merchants, might be reason enough.

NewsBTC pointed to BCH use in Japan as an accepted form of payment. Evidence on that front, beyond Japan, is routinely being gathered by the coin’s fans. Heading into its scheduled upgrade for May 2019, BCH is set to get Schnorr signatures, theoretically helping in the quest for greater transaction privacy, something BTC devs have been working on but not implemented. On that front, CashShuffle has emerged as real-world solution, and is now included in the Electron Wallet. CashAccounts is another user-friendly idea in the opposite direction, almost. There’s a whole separate development portal now for BCH, making it convenient for devs to build on Bitcoin Cash. Those are just touching the surface. How about BitPay accepting BCH, allowing it to be accepted by merchants everywhere Visa is? CoinText makes it a snap for BCH to be sent and received via text message. Maybe there’s more than just irrational exuberance happening.

DISCLOSURE: The author holds cryptocurrency as part of his financial portfolio, including BCH.

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