Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum Classic Shoot For The Moon: Are People On The Hunt For 'Cheaper Alternatives' To The Big 2 Cryptos?
Bitcoin Gold (BTG) and Ethereum Classic (CRYPTO: ETC), which are often considered cheaper Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) alternatives, are soaring today.
What’s Moving? ETC traded 8.8% higher at $37.71 over 24 hours, while BTG spiked 20.9% to $38.44 in the same time frame.
| Time-frame | % Change (+/-) |
|---|---|
| 24-hour | 9.4% |
| 24-hour against Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) | 12.9% |
| 24-hour against Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) | 13.5% |
| 7-day | 47.4% |
| 30-day | 31.5% |
|
YTD Performance |
9.4% |
| Time-frame | % Change (+/-) |
|---|---|
| 24-hour | 23.5% |
| 24-hour against Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) | 23.1% |
| 24-hour against Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) | 23.7% |
| 7-day | 24% |
| 30-day | 24.6% |
|
YTD performance |
-5.7% |
See Also: Ethereum Vs Ethereum Classic
Why Are They Moving? Bitcoin Gold is a hard fork of BTC, with a focus on decentralized mining. The project came into being in October of 2017. Ethereum Classic is the inheritor of the original Ethereum blockchain after a contentious hard fork dating back to July 2016.
Bitcoin was seen trending on CoinMarketCap at press time. Another Bitcoin knockoff, Bitcoin SV (BSV), was trending on Stocktwits. At press time, Ethereum Classic dominated the chart of trending tickers kept by Stocktwits.
ETC was among the most mentioned coins on Twitter at press time. It attracted 392 tweets, according to Cointrendz data.
The three most mentioned coins — Ripple, Bitcoin, and Ethereum — attracted 2,879, 1,981, and 1,153 tweets respectively.
ETC’s trading volume jumped 148.4% to $3.4 billion over 24 hours, while the trading volume of BTG shot up a whopping 856.7% to $170.07 million.
There have been instances in the recent past when cheaper BTC and ETH plays have soared in conjunction with pricier peers.
On Friday, the project linked to Ethereum Classic said in a blog that Ethereum Foundation’s planned migration of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to a proof-of-stake consensus in the second quarter of 2022 will “disenfranchise” the largest EVM proof of work ecosystem.
“Ethereum Classic is well-positioned to absorb much of this abandoned Ethash hashrate,” said the project.
ETC and BTG Chatter: YouTube channel Savage Profits attributed the recent rise in ETC to a short squeeze. The channel said the short squeeze started on March 18 when $1.48 million in ETC shorts were liquidated.
Binance Alarms, a Twitter handle alerts “every drastic price change on Binance” noted the sharp spike in BTG.
Bitcoin Gold (BTG) rose 30.9% 1d, from 31.7USDT to 41.4USDT. $BTG #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/gMQ1hZfyi5
— BinanceAlarms (@BinanceAlarms) March 21, 2022
Read Next: Bitcoin Analysts React To Fed Rate Hike: Is A 'Short Squeeze' In Cards Above $40K Level?
Photo: Courtesy of ETC via Flickr
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