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Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hit a seven-month high on Tuesday and has gained 15% in the past week to $519.10 at the time of writing. The cryptocurrency, often termed Bcash, was the best-performing top-100 crypto asset, and its performance far exceeded the overall crypto market cap, which dipped 2.8%.
Bitcoin Cash, which split off from its parent currency in 2017, is the most popular and most traded of the 100-plus Bitcoin “forks.” In practice, it functions fairly identically to Bitcoin (BTC), but it boasts a much larger block size and an entirely independent underlying blockchain.
Today’s performance capped off a month-long bull run; it’s up 29% over the past 30 days, as per CoinGecko data. It’s also clearly beating its parent coin, Bitcoin, which is down 1.2% today and up a comparatively meager 1.4% over the past 30 days.
Why is Bitcoin Cash rallying?
One analyst told Decrypt that the recent rally appears to be largely driven by whale activity rather than by smaller traders.
According to Illia Otychenko, Lead Analyst at CEX.IO, the average Bitcoin Cash transaction volume in late June was $75,000, a huge jump from just $10,000 in early April. Meanwhile, transactions over 1,000 BCH each spiked up to 20 times at one point in June.
“Notably, these surges occurred during periods when the overall number of transactions remained flat, pointing to large holders rather than retail users as the primary source of buying pressure,” explained Otychenko.
But this whale-driven Bitcoin Cash bull run may not continue. Otychenko believes that the cryptocurrency seems to be entering a consolidation phase, pointing out that despite higher prices in recent days, overall trading volume has been declining, and that both whale activity and average transaction value have dropped nearly 90%.
“A similar pattern played out in mid-May, when reduced whale participation led to a price plateau and more activity from smaller holders.”
Russell Shor, Senior Market Analyst at Tradu, thinks the recent Bitcoin Cash bull run could be attributed to “risk-on sentiment” following a reprieve from the Trump administration’s reciprocal tariffs, as well as “bullish technicals, institutional buying, and optimism around potential Fed rate cuts.”
“With strong momentum pushing it past $500, BCH could soon test the $600 mark if the trend holds,” he explained. “However, its path forward may face bumps from market swings and regulatory uncertainties.”
He added: “Keep an eye on the $460–$470 range to see if this rally has staying power.”
Edited by Stacy Elliott.