Update on the Bitcoin + Zclassic Fork Bitcoin Private

A Bittersweet Snapshot for Bitcoin Private; Fork is Looking Like a Success… but Zclassic Price Tanks

The Bitcoin Private snapshot occurred. The event had an unfortunate side effect of crashing the price of Zlcassic. However, the rest is good news.

What is a Bitcoin Private snapshot? Zclassic and Bitcoin both forked to create Bitcoin Private on February 28th, 2018. A snapshot was taken of the blockchain of each. Anyone who had Zclassic or Bitcoin at the time of the fork will own equal parts Bitcoin Private.

This is not what anyone wants to see. But it is always the risk one faces when they don’t sell the news.

TIP: Bittrex is the only major exchange (not the only exchange) that Zclassic trades on. Thus the price drop shown here is the one to pay attention to. The good news is that Bittrex is supporting the fork; the bad news is that the price of Zclassic (ZCL) crashed on Bittrex right after the Bitcoin Private snapshot was taken. This is bittersweet for anyone holding ZCL on Bittrex.

What You Need to Know About the Zlcassic Price Drop and the Bitcoin Private Fork Snapshot

Here are some key things to understand what just occurred with the Zclassic + Bitcoin fork and the forked coin Bitcoin Private

• The Bitcoin Private snapshot seemed to be successful, and thus the coin should be going live with 48 hours (we will post an article about claiming Bitcoin Private when the Main Network launches).
• Bittrex, a major exchange, is supporting the fork and seems to be on track to credit Zclassic holders (but not Bitcoin holders) with Bitcoin Private (however Bittrex won’t be offering Bitcoin Private for trading; please read the full statement on Bitcoin Private from Bittrex). This fork appears to be more widely supported than other forks; there is a good chance other platforms that trade or hold ZCL or BTC will end up supporting the fork as well. However, you’ll need to check out the blog and Twitter of each platform for details.
• Anyone in Bitcoin should also get Bitcoin Private and experienced little to no price drop other than that which would have occurred anyway.
• All that good news aside, the price of Zclassic took a serious and quick hit when the snapshot occurred leaving holders almost no room to exit their positions. Which means anyone who bought in recently took at least a temporary hit in price.

This mix of good news and bad news can teach us at least two very important lessons. Let’s review them:

1. In cryptocurrency, many people buy the rumor and sell the news. So many do this that it can be impossible to fight the trend. People tend to bid up the price of a coin upon hearing a rumor, but then tend to sell the coin right before, right after, or as the event takes place. Thus, sticking around for the event can sometimes be a risky move in crypto. This is especially true when there is a lot of price action leading up to the event. With Zclassic, there was a lot of price action leading up to the fork, and being in Zclassic for the fork resulted in the value of Zclassic going from 0.008 BTC to 0.0013 BTC moments after the snapshot occurred. Consider, it had been at nearly 0.02 BTC only days earlier. This brutal, if perhaps only temporary, drop in price is the sort of risk you have to keep in mind when you buy the rumor but don’t sell the news.
2. In cryptocurrency, it almost always pays to assume the fork is real. Every single fork that is announced produces two passionate camps of people: 1. the camp that believes in the fork and prepares for it and 2. the camp that assumes the fork is a scam or fake and states their view loudly on social media. The group that assumes the fork is fake tends to not prepare for the fork to be real. Many forks end up being real, and thus the camp that assumes they are fake tends to be caught off guard every time. The right answer might not be “HODL” (see the first point), but if you assume the fork is real, you can at least prepare for it.

So here is the lesson. If you were a long time Zclassic holder, or if you bought in right as the fork was announced, you didn’t lose much holding for the fork. If you bought in toward the top and held, you have hopefully learned a lesson about crypto. When you have a coin that hasn’t performed that well over time but then rapidly starts to rise, like Zclassic or Verge, and then you buy after the price has been bid up in anticipation of a rumor, and then you hold until the event, you are taking a risk.

A calculated risk is just fine and nothing to beat yourself over, but going into that sort of risk blind can sting a little (and when you get stung, you should take the time to learn a lesson from it, so it doesn’t happen again next time).

Stings aside, there is a real plus here. That plus is that the product of all of this, Bitcoin Private should be live and tradable soon. It is likely to fetch a decent price out of the gate and make up for some of the temporary price woes. Further, Zclassic might see a rebound as well.

FOR EDUCATIONAL AND INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES: Historically speaking, once a coin makes waves as Zclassic has, it sets a precedent for making waves again; history loves to repeat in crypto. Those who can’t bring themselves to sell Zclassic at the new low, and are currently sitting on losses, can always take the additional risk of holding until the next alt boom. If and when alts boom again, history tells us coins that did very well in the last cycle (like Zclassic) have a chance of doing well again. Remember, there will also be a chance to make back some lost value by trading Bitcoin Private. In other words, it wasn’t a great day for Zclassic holders, but it could be way worse.