Bitcoin Cash (BCH), the fifth-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, just executed its first halving. Today’s event reduces the amount of BCH each miner can earn for verifying transactions on the network, slashing the reward from 12.5 BCH to 6.25 for each new block.
Traders are looking to see if the halving impacts the price of BCH as the coin’s rate of production shrinks by 50%. The events will also likely affect the hash rate, which measures the amount of computing power miners are using to validate transactions, with a higher hash rate indicating a more secure network.
While the Bitcoin Cash hash rate currently remains steady, according to data compiled by BitInfoCharts, the long-term impact on miners remains to be seen.
Messari researcher Ryan Watkins is tracking data from Fork Monitor that suggests Bitcoin Cash miners may be exiting the network.
Bitcoin Cash is currently trading at $266, up 3.32% in the last 24 hours. Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) will also halve in approximately two days. As the two largest Bitcoin forks, both BCH and BSV are showing price gains, with BSV at $216.64, up 14.57%.
Crypto enthusiasts are also anticipating Bitcoin’s halving, which is set to happen in approximately 35 days. Bitcoin is currently trading at $7,300, down 0.34%, after rebounding from a March sell-off that pushed the leading cryptocurrency below $4,000.
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