A lot of interesting things are happening in the SegWit2x futures market right now. Although it seemed this hard fork had been called off on Tuesday, it’s still very much on the table. For the time being, the futures market has pretty much collapsed. After surpassing US$2,000 on multiple platforms, B2X futures are now down to US$290. It will be interesting to see if the price recovers in the next few days.
SegWit2x Futures Lose 75% of Value
There is a fair amount of confusion associated with the SegWit2x hard fork right now. Given the conflicting reports on how things will move ahead, that is only to be expected. More specifically, the first report broke on Wednesday explaining that the hard fork had effectively been canceled. This decision didn’t sit well with diehard SegWit2x supporters, even though the viability of the new chain has always been questionable at best.
With the hard fork called off, things did not look all that great for the B2X futures market either. The initial response was pretty harsh, as the value dropped from US$2,065 on November 3rd all the way to US$179 a few hours ago. This large discrepancy is only to be expected, as it almost appeared as if the hard fork had no chance of surviving. It may still fail miserably, mind you, but that will become clearer in the weeks to come.
A few hours ago, the SegWit2x team issued a note warning that the hard fork would still be taking place on the aforementioned date. This is pretty interesting, to say the very least, as a lot of people had already given up hope for this fork to begin with. Then again, the developers think there will be enough support to create a viable blockchain, although it remains to be seen if that will be the case. None of the supporting mining pools have switched back over as of yet, which is a positive sign for supporters of SegWit2x.
The futures market is also rebounding slowly, although there are still gigantic losses to be overcome. Once the airdrop happens, a lot of people will look to cash out their B2X accordingly. As this token becomes more valuable in the futures market, there will be more people buying Bitcoin who hope to get a free US$1,000 token or better for every Bitcoin they hold. This speculation is also what drove the recent Bitcoin price surge in the first place. When the fork was called off, the Bitcoin price tanked shortly after reaching its new all-time high.
At the time of writing, SegWit2x futures were valued at US$295 on HitBTC and US$289 on Exrates. Neither of these values are particularly high, although they seem to represent the fair value of B2X in its current state. With the developers still going ahead with this fork, they will effectively create an altcoin first and foremost. This new currency will not compete with Bitcoin in any significant manner, unless there is overwhelming support by miners. Whether or not that will be the case if the B2X value is lower than that of Bitcoin remains to be determined.
There is an interesting future ahead for SegWit2x, especially considering that the fork has not been officially called off just yet. Whether or not this means we will see a B2X value of US$2,000 again remains to be seen. Right now, there seems to be very little faith in this hard fork among the overall community. Then again, there is a golden opportunity to buy up very cheap futures for B2X right now, as its value may surprise everyone when the currency finally becomes available.
