(Bloomberg) -- The pursuer is about to get caught from behind.
Bitcoin cash, a spinoff that emerged in August following a heated debate in the cryptocurrency community over how to make transactions more efficient, is on the brink of overtaking ether as the second most valuable digital coin by market value.
It wasn't supposed to go like that. For months, Ethereum enthusiasts have been waiting for what they call “the flippening,” the day when ether's market value overtakes bitcoin. Now, it's bitcoin cash that's tracked down ether, with its price surging 62 percent since Coinbase enabled trading in it Tuesday. That pushed its market cap as high as $73 billion today, compared with ether's $79 billion valuation, according to data on Coinmarketcap.com.
That's not to say ether's been slumping. Its value has soared by $50 billion since the end of October. Bitcoin, though, has almost tripled in that time to just under $300 billion.
For Roger Ver, one of the earliest promoters of bitcoin, the offshoot's rise has only started -- and bitcoin itself had better watch out.
“By next time this year bitcoin core will no longer be the top cryptocurrency in the world, I'm confident about that,” said Ver, who's known as Bitcoin Jesus in crypto circles. “If you have two versions of bitcoin, one that's fast, cheap and reliable to use and the other one that's not, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know which is more useful.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Lily Katz in New York at lkatz31@bloomberg.net, Camila Russo in New York at crusso15@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Andrew Dunn
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