The long-anticipated halving of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has finally arrived—marking a pivotal moment not only for BCH but also for its forked counterpart, Bitcoin SV (BSV). As these two major Bitcoin derivatives undergo their first-ever supply reduction, investors and analysts are closely watching how this event might influence broader market dynamics—especially in the lead-up to Bitcoin’s own halving in 2025.
On April 8, 2025, at 20:19 UTC, Antpool mined block 630,000 on the BCH network. This milestone triggered the halving mechanism, cutting block rewards from 12.5 BCH to 6.25 BCH per block. With network hash rate hovering around 3.69 EH/s and mining difficulty at 523.62 G, BCH’s price stood above $265—slightly down nearly 5% from its 24-hour high.
BSV followed a similar trajectory, undergoing its parallel halving shortly after. Both coins saw immediate price surges: BCH climbed from $251 to a peak of $280 (up 11.55%), while BSV jumped from $184 to nearly $220 (a 19.5% increase), outpacing other major cryptocurrencies in short-term gains.
But the real question on everyone’s mind is: Will this momentum last?
The Ghost of Litecoin Past: Is “Halving Hype” Already Priced In?
Unlike Bitcoin, which has three historical halvings to analyze, BCH and BSV lack precedent. However, Litecoin (LTC)—a close cousin in design and economic structure—offers a cautionary tale.
LTC halved in August 2024, with prices rising modestly before the event. A brief post-halving spike pushed LTC above $100, only to be followed by a sharp reversal—a "pin drop" that wiped out gains and left prices struggling to recover. Market analysts like blockchain strategist William attribute this to broader bearish macro trends and premature speculation.
“History repeats itself—not always identically, but often in tone,” says William. “With LTC, the hype was consumed early. For BCH and BSV, we may already be past the peak of expectations.”
This echoes concerns among traders who point to persistent bearish sentiment on derivatives exchanges. According to recent data trends (prior to removal per guidelines), open interest on certain platforms showed short positions outnumbering longs by a ratio of 1.5:1 during key price movements—suggesting many are betting on a pullback.
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Two Halvings, One Narrative: Can BCH and BSV Create Their Own Momentum?
Despite skepticism, some experts argue that dismissing halving impact too quickly overlooks structural differences.
K爷, a senior research director, breaks down halving effects into two phases:
- Short-term: Speculative “bubble” phase driven by FOMO.
- Long-term: Fundamental “brick-laying” phase shaped by reduced supply and growing utility.
“Reduced issuance doesn’t vanish overnight,” K爷 explains. “It creates a slow-burning deficit that accumulates over months. That’s when true scarcity starts to matter.”
While BTC dominates the narrative around scarcity, BCH and BSV benefit from having strong backing—both technically and ideologically. Major mining pools such as Antpool, BTC.com, ViaBTC, and BTC.TOP continue to support the network. Notably, Jiang Zhuole (founder of BTC.TOP) pledged personal control over approximately 3,500P of hashing power—roughly equivalent to pre-halving BCH total hash rate—to defend network integrity if needed.
Additionally, BCH’s client software (ABC) includes a security feature called rolling checkpoints, which locks blocks after 10 confirmations to prevent chain rollbacks—a safeguard against potential double-spend attacks.
Mining Aftermath: Will Hash Power Leak to Bitcoin?
A common concern post-halving is miner exodus. With rewards halved, less efficient miners may shut down or switch chains.
If half of BCH and BSV’s combined hash rate migrates to Bitcoin mining, BTC could see an estimated 3% increase in total network difficulty—a manageable rise historically, but one that adds pressure in an era of razor-thin mining margins.
Still, this shift isn’t purely competitive. It serves as a stress test for BTC’s resilience and offers insights into how miner behavior evolves under supply shocks.
More importantly, the price action of BCH and BSV now acts as a live case study for what might unfold when Bitcoin itself halves later in 2025.
“Every halving teaches us something new,” says K爷. “You need real-world data from A/B/C scenarios to build better models. When patterns repeat across assets, they become signals—not noise.”
Beyond Price: Can BCH Rebuild Trust and Scale Its Ecosystem?
Price movements capture headlines, but long-term value lies in adoption and development.
Critics have long accused BCH of stagnation—especially compared to BSV, whose on-chain transaction volume often surpasses it. Charts show BSV frequently outperforming both BTC and BCH in daily transactions, fueled by data-anchoring applications like weather logs and tokenized records.
Yet some BCH advocates dismiss such activity as artificial volume:
“Just because you’re writing weather reports on-chain doesn’t mean you’ve built a killer app,” writes BCH supporter BruceLee.
Still, the reality is that BCH’s native ecosystem remains underdeveloped, with few decentralized applications (dApps) gaining traction.
A major setback came earlier this year with the collapse of the BCH Infrastructure Financing Plan—a proposal by Jiang Zhuole to fund developers through miner donations. The plan faced backlash over centralization concerns and perceived governance manipulation via “hash vote” mechanisms.
Tensions escalated when the ABC development team released a client update that defaulted to supporting the financing plan—requiring technical know-how to opt out. The move was widely criticized, leading community developer freetrader to launch BCHN (BCH Node), a competing full-node implementation that gained rapid adoption.
While fragmentation poses risks, it also introduced resilience:
- Emergence of alternative funding platforms like Flipstarter
- Growth of independent clients promoting decentralization
- Renewed focus on transparent governance
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Signs of Life: USDT, DeFi, and Privacy Tools Fuel Innovation
Despite internal strife, recent developments hint at revival:
- Tether (USDT) launched on BCH via the SLP protocol on March 20, making it the fifth blockchain (after BTC, ETH, TRON, and EOS) to host the stablecoin. This signals institutional confidence in BCH’s stability and utility.
- The SLP token standard has facilitated over 7,530 issued tokens, with SLP-related transactions accounting for more than 10% of all BCH activity.
- Anyhedge, a derivatives platform built on General Protocols, is set to debut in April as one of BCH’s first true DeFi applications.
- Cashfusion, a privacy-focused mixing solution, successfully raised 5.1 BTC in community funding—enabling continued development of confidential transactions.
These milestones suggest BCH may be transitioning from infrastructure building to actual use-case deployment—the elusive “zero to one” leap many public blockchains struggle to achieve.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What does halving mean for BCH and BSV?
A: Halving cuts miner block rewards in half every four years (or ~210k blocks), reducing new supply issuance. For BCH and BSV, this means rewards dropped from 12.5 to 6.25 coins per block—potentially increasing scarcity over time.
Q: Do halvings guarantee price increases?
A: Not necessarily. While reduced supply can create upward pressure, external factors like market sentiment, macro trends, and investor expectations play larger roles. LTC’s 2024 halving saw only temporary gains before a sharp reversal.
Q: Could BCH lose security after halving due to miner drop-off?
A: Temporary hash rate dips are normal post-halving. However, BCH remains protected by major mining pools and protocol-level safeguards like rolling checkpoints—making large-scale attacks highly unlikely.
Q: How might BCH’s halving affect Bitcoin?
A: Indirectly. If miners shift hash power to BTC, competition increases slightly (~3% estimated). More importantly, BCH’s price behavior offers behavioral data ahead of BTC’s 2025 halving.
Q: Is there real innovation happening on the BCH network?
A: Yes. Recent additions include USDT integration via SLP, upcoming DeFi tools like Anyhedge, and privacy solutions like Cashfusion—showing signs of ecosystem maturation despite past setbacks.
Q: Why did the BCH financing plan fail?
A: It was criticized for centralizing decision-making among large mining pools. The controversial default voting mechanism in ABC client updates further eroded trust—leading to community-led alternatives like BCHN.
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