BITCOIN WELL SUPPORTED AS SEGWITX2 ABORTED

Bitcoin prices rose on Friday, as the backers of the Segwit2x hard fork aborted their mission just a week before the expected chain split.

BTCUSD raced back above $7,300 on Friday, as markets rejoiced in the news that the Bitcoin network will avert a hard fork next week. With the market cap now reaching $121 billion, Bitcoin easily tops the crypto asset class.

The highly contentious Segwit2x hard fork failed to build consensus this week, as miners continued to argue over how to upgrade the network. The new protocol promised to increase the base block size to 2MB in an effort to boost scalability.

Bitcoin’s advance on Friday came on the heels of a much broader gain in the altcoin market. Altcoins like Ethereum and Litecoin put up strong gains as investors finally poured money back into a diverse range of digital currencies not just bitcoin. The overall market for cryptocurrency is valued at more than $205 billion.