Is regular bitcoin (BTC) too expensive? The most popular crypto-currency flirted with a price of $20,000 as it became more mainstream. Enabling futures trading on the CME was a big step forward, but also allowed going short on the coin.

Going short or just plain old profit-taking sent BTC/USD down. At the time of writing, it is struggling to hold onto $16,000, a fall of around 20% from that $20K level.

The rival, bitcoin cash (BCH), offers quicker transactions and lower costs. We wrote that the next rally may come in bitcoin cash. A prominent bitcoin expert threw his weight around the forked out coin, available only since August.

And indeed, Bitcoin cash rallied hard to around $3500 from around $2300 yesterday. This leap challenges the swing high that was recorded earlier and was not sustainable This time may be different.

Bitcoin cash got a big boost from a decision made by Coinbase. One of the world’s most important exchanges of crypto-currencies announced it would enable buying and selling BCH on its platform. This makes it more mainstream as well.

With BTC falling and BCH rising, we can examine the crypto cross and find BCH/BTC soaring by no less than 40% on the day but some 100% since the weekend. The cross now stands at 0.20 and before the weekend it traded under 0.10.

Will this continue higher? A lot depends on speculation, but also on fundamental reasons such transaction costs, time to approve these transactions, usability, etc. And, it’s important to remember that both bitcoins face a rivalry from the more sophisticated Ethereum.

Here is the BCH/BTC 30-minute chart:

 

 

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