Bitcoin Price Volatility: Geopolitics and Internal Drama Fuel Market Uncertainty
The price of BTC USD has been fluctuating due to geopolitical tensions and internal drama within Bitcoin. The situation is further complicated by the resignation of Luke Dashjr as chairman and chief technology officer of mining pool OCEAN, which he now refers to as 'Spamcoin.'
Spamcoin operates under centralized management, unlike Bitcoin, and has been criticized for its restrictive policies. Specifically, it does not allow miners to build their own templates or utilize DATUM, which Dashjr claims is necessary for decentralization.
The tension culminates in a hard fork on Tuesday that switches to the BLAKE2b mining algorithm, incompatible with existing Bitcoin hardware. This has led to a 96% decline in OCEAN's hashrate in August.
Despite this turmoil, BTC price action remains relatively calm, with Bitcoin being one of the stronger major assets in August. The technical picture suggests that a reclaim of $80K on rising volume could reopen the path toward Standard Chartered analyst Geoff Kendrick's $100,000 year-end target.