Bitcoin Recovers Following Bitfinex Hack

By Bitcoin Chaser
Published Sep 6th, 2016
Bitcoin Recovers Following Bitfinex Hack

With the Bitfinex saga over, the price of bitcoin has finally started its way towards recovery. In fact, with cryptocurrency markets slowing down over the last week, bitcoin is one of the few bright spots, making this recovery all the more reassuring. The recovery also comes at a time in which bitcoin skepticism is growing. The community faces hard choices now and the whole block size and hard fork debates are still raging. Nevertheless, this short recovery shows that bitcoin still has a lot to offer to its users.

Staying Above $600 USD After Prolonged Losses

This price recovery should not be taken for granted. After all bitcoin has many competitors out there, which could one day gobble up bitcoin’s share of the market. However this has not happened yet which shows that bitcoin is still enjoying its first mover advantages. There might be more technically sophisticated cryptocurrencies out there, but they do not have the same level of acceptance worldwide, or at least not yet.

Taking Advantage of Price Momentum

There is no doubt that this represents a great opportunity for the Bitcoin community to come to a consensus and fix the problems that everyone is already familiar with. The community should take the advantage and find some clarity now before trading volume spikes and transaction times start stunting bitcoin’s recovery. After all trading volume is one of the indicators of future growth potential for the coin.

Bitcoin Price Rising After Bitfinex Hack
This screenshot shows bitcoin comfortably over the $600 USD mark and rising, while all other major cryptocurrencies struggle. However, trading volumes tell a different story. Monero, which has been rising lately, challenging bitcoin on several key features like anonymity, has the second largest trading volume after bitcoin. Screenshot taken from coinmarketcap.com on September 6th, 2016 at 16:00 GMT.

Trading Volume Readings

The trading volume of other cryptocurrencies can also give bitcoin users a sample of the threats that the mother of all cryptocurrencies faces in the markets. Over the last few weeks, Monero has been rising through the charts, and it is now consistently posting trading volumes that are second only to those of well-established bitcoin. This could threaten bitcoin’s status in the medium-term, since Monero offers a few key complementary features that bitcoin doesn’t. This should serve as an additional incentive for the Bitcoin community to solve its differences and upgrade the coin’s capability as quickly as possible.

Final Thoughts

While sustained price recovery is in bitcoin’s interest, it will not be able to keep the momentum going if it takes too long to upgrade. The discussions and debates about the hard fork and block size are becoming more and more repetitive. It is definitely time to break the vicious cycle, get the community to agree and keep bitcoin’s momentum on. The first mover advantage cannot last forever; it is time to act in order to nurture that advantage further.