Will Bitcoin Cash Impact the Bitcoin Price? Traders Split on Possible Fork

Called Bitcoin Cash, the effort will effectively fork bitcoin's existing software and transaction history, and in the process, give every bitcoin user new cryptocurrency tokens on a new blockchain with different rules.

Should users own 2 BTC, this means they'll now be able to claim 2 BCC on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain, a move that could generate millions of dollars in new value for traders.

Overall, analysts offered a variety of opinions on what could develop in the days and months ahead, commenting on what they believe could be the immediate and long-term impact of the creation of a new, widely traded cryptocurrency bearing resemblance to bitcoin.

It's important to note that not all traders believe Bitcoin Cash will meet this definition.

Arthur Hayes, founder of crypto derivatives trading platform BitMEX, for example, noted that "Theoretically" the launch of Bitcoin Cash should cause bitcoin's price to drop.

Still, he questions whether this indeed will happen given that, historically, traders have not been kind to assets that have attempted to fork away from bitcoin.

"There have been many similar distributions based on bitcoin ownership that caused no such drop in price, including bitcoin clams, byteball, etc. I think the Bitcoin Cash distribution will have minimal to no impact on the bitcoin price," he said.

Because of issues like these, and others perhaps unforeseen, Van der Chijs said he expects the combined price of bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash to fall below $2,700, the average recent price of bitcoin as observed on the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index.

No ETC. Still, other market observers sought to stress that a bitcoin fork might be less competitive against the larger bitcoin cryptocurrency because of its entrenched network effect.

As for practical advice, Zhou, like others, stressed that traders who want to take part in any trading should withdraw their bitcoin from exchanges on the off-chance they aren't offering support for the new cryptocurrency.