Credit: Shutterstock photoThe price of Bitcoin Cash, a so-called "hard fork" of Bitcoin, soared on Tuesday after Bitcoin.com co-founder and CTO Emil Oldenburg said that he has sold all of his original Bitcoins and replaced them with the rising altcoin.
"An investment in Bitcoin right now I would say is the most risky investment one can make. It is extremely high-risk. I've actually sold all of my Bitcoins recently and switched to Bitcoin Cash," Oldenburg told Swedish tech site Breakit .
Oldenburg also cited increased transaction fees and slow confirmation times as two reasons for his departure from Bitcoin. These issues, which have been caused by skyrocketing interest in the original cryptocurrency, were the primary catalysts for the creation of Bitcoin Cash.
Launched in August, Bitcoin Cash is hard fork of Bitcoins. A hard fork in the cryptocurrency world refers to a change in the rules of the blockchain infrastructure that is not recognized as valid by the older software. In some ways, hard forks are similar to stock splits in that they are designed, in part, to alleviate barriers to entry for new users.
Oldenburg explained that his company, which serves as a popular Bitcoin wallet, has started to move away from Bitcoin and will begin focusing more on Bitcoin Cash.
"We've actually stopped developing new services for the old Bitcoin network now and are focusing mostly on Bitcoin Cash," he said.
In the wake of Oldenburg's comments, the price of Bitcoin slipped more than 3.5% on Tuesday morning, while the price of several notable altcoins-including Bitcoin Cash-soared to new highs. In overnight trading, Bitcoin Cash soared more than 20% to a new peak of $2,400.
Bitcoin Cash could also be benefitting from the news that Thomson Reuters added the altcoin to its Eikon platform, making it the third cryptocurrency-after Bitcoin and Ethereum-to be included on the service. Eikon is a set of financial analysis software products that are used by hundreds of thousands of financial professionals.
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