Source: iStock/DNY59

Bitcoin Cash (BCH), the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has jumped more than 18% over the past 24 hours (UTC 08:00 AM), following a prolonged sell-off that has brought the price per coin down below the USD 500 level.

The surge, which started on Wednesday and continued Thursday, has been linked to crypto mining hardware maker Bitmain’s filing for an initial public offering (IPO) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at social trading platform eToro, said in a statement that the timing of the IPO filing was “impeccable,” adding that “this spike [in BCH] was definitely caused by Bitmain's IPO filing, […] as the price began to rise within moments of the news release.”

As the crypto community has known for some time now, Bitmain holds a massive amount of Bitcoin Cash in its reserves. According to the recently filed prospectus, Bitmain’s cryptocurrency holdings amounts to 28% of its total assets. However, a coin-by-coin breakdown of the holdings was not available.

Still, the community is divided on the question of what the company plans to do with those reserves. While some people suggest the company will be forced to sell off some of its BCH to fund its extensive research & development efforts, others say it is invested for the long-term and will likely participate in the continued development of BCH.

The months leading up the Bitmain’s IPO has not been without controversies however, with firms such as Tencent and SoftBank denying reports that they participated in pre-IPO funding rounds for the Beijing-based hardware maker.

In the prospectus, several important details, such as the number of shares to be issued and a timetable for the listing, has been redacted, and the document is therefore considered a draft without a firm timeline.

As reported, created as a hard fork itself, Bitcoin Cash is now facing a possible fork: the crypto mining industry giants Bitmain and CoinGeek have found themselves on opposing sides in this struggle, as well as two competing proposals - Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash nChain. The future of Bitcoin Cash is at stake, as the split is set to take place on November 15th.