Bitcoin Fundamentals Still Rising As Price Stabilizes And 'Xi Effect' Wanes

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The cryptocurrency markets have cooled off in the past few days, as the ‘Xi effect‘ subsides. Bitcoin remains stable above $9,000 as the rest of the market is seeing relatively strong falls today.

BNB, XLM and TRON are down more than average today with 4-5%, though there are outliers in Tezos and Bitcoin Cash at +4% and +1.5% respectively.

Blockchain activity has picked up

Despite a general lack of action in recent days, fundamental adoption figures have trended up significantly.

Data from blockchain.com shows that the average value of bitcoin transactions has increased to more than $1b in the past few days.

But while some may hastily point to China being at the driver’s seat of this activity, data from TokenAnalyst shows a more nuanced picture.

The Xi effect visualized: A look at #bitcoin on-chain transactions during the days of the 40% price spike.

Chinese waking hours:
# of Txns: 169K
Txn Volume: 475K BTC
Avg Txn Value: 2.8 BTC

Other hours:
# of Txns: 175K
Txn Volume: 962K BTC
Avg Txn Value: 5.5 BTC

🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/l1JgtGrLm5

— TokenAnalyst (@thetokenanalyst) October 29, 2019

The value of transactions conducted during Chinese waking hours is less than half of those in the rest of the day, as both Europe and the U.S. enter their working times. A larger proportion of the U.S. time-slot transactions are inter-exchange transfers though, as TokenAnalyst points out.

The increase in activity thus appears to be a global phenomenon, likely caused by the recent price action. The powerful nature of the rally has influenced other indicators as well, with trader sentiment seeing noticeable gains, coming out of its previously downward trend.

Hash rate is also growing at a steady pace, briefly hitting 100 Exahashes per second before going down in the past two days.

Jihan Wu back at the helm of Bitmain, BCH Spikes

Bitmain appears to have been embroiled in a coup, in what is a developing story broken by Dovey Wan.

WOW THIS IS MORE DRAMATIC THAN I THOUGHT

Got this internal email from Bitmain where Jihan sent to the whole company, this is INTENSE

”Micree Zhan is dismissed from all operating positions from the company immediately. No one should take order from him or attend his meeting"👀 pic.twitter.com/aguM5Rzg1b

— Dovey "Rug the fiat" Wan (hiring) (@DoveyWan) October 29, 2019

The takeover appears to have been orchestrated while Micree Zhan was away from Bitmain headquarters, which gave the possibility for Jihan Wu to reclaim the CEO position. Citing the need to “save the ship from sinking” he ousted Zhan by allegedly ordering security to prevent him from entering the building.

Bitcoin Cash spiked by about 10% on October 28, when the word first got out.

Given that Micree Zhan is reported to hold over 1.6M BCH, the news should be interpreted as negative for the project. Despite Jihan Wu being one of the initial proponents of Bitcoin Cash, investors in all asset classes generally favor stability above all else.

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