Bitcoin and Ethereum prices suffered heavy losses over the past few days amid a looming scaling deadline, but are bouncing quite nicely this morning as dip-buyers begin to step in.
Coin Telegraph has a good recap of what transpired over the weekend:
The price of the cryptocurrency and Blockchain platform Ethereum continued to suffer losses as an effect of worries about Bitcoin’s potential split that’s approaching August 1. Bitcoin price has also been falling lately, although not in such a dramatic manner.
On Sunday, it plunged more than 20 percent. Although Monday morning it recouped most of its weekend losses, investors’ concerns clearly remain intact.
As we pointed out recently, a key rift in the bitcoin community is causing chaos throughout the cryptocurrency world. One group of developers wants to alter bitcoin’s code base to make it easier for it to scale in the future, while others aren’t so sure.
The developers have set a July 31 deadline, after which bitcoin could split into two separate branches. If the situation gets resolved in an orderly manner, then we’d expect a big rally in the crypto world. But the closer we get to that date without a resolution, the more the risk for more losses.
Bitcoin prices were up 3.6% to $2,008.84 on Monday morning, recapturing the key $2,000 level. Meanwhile, Ethereum was up 2% to $163.26. Ethereum remains more than 50% off its all-time highs set just over a month ago.