Bitcoin Cash To Fork On November 15th

Although the crypto community has one goal, and one goal only — to usurp the powers that be — certain controversial factions within this budding industry remain more divided than ever before, failing to come to a consensus regarding the future of a certain blockchain, the Bitcoin Cash Network. These disagreements have led Coinbase and Binance, two prominent startups in this ecosystem, to preemptively introduce support for potential forked BCH, which may be parented by an upcoming protocol upgrade.

For the uninitiated, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin’s foremost competing chain (fork), hard forks its blockchain twice a year to integrate and activate scheduled protocol upgrades. Although the network’s previous upgrades went mostly unhampered, the next one, which is set to drop on November 15th, is looking rather precarious, to say the least.

NChain, a blockchain group led by Australian ‘Satoshi-want-to-be’ Craig Wright, doesn’t agree with the changes and alterations that Bitcoin ABC, a Bitcoin Cash-centric developer consortium, has proposed, and as such, the former group has decided to run with its own upgrade, which will likely result in two independent chains.

Coinbase, Binance, Ledger All Unveil Support BCH Fork

Due to this odd consensus division, exchanges and platforms supporting BCH have had to make a very tough decision — should they support the hard fork or not?

After weeks of presumed deliberation, as reported by Ethereum World News previously, Binance, the world’s largest crypto-to-crypto exchange, announced support for the asset, claiming that it would be suspending BCH deposits and withdrawals an hour or two prior to the hard fork’s expected date.

This news came just hours after Ledger, a prominent French startup focused on crypto asset storage solutions, revealed that it would be protecting its users through the fork, claiming it would support the dominant chain, the fork with the most hashing power and highest levels of stability when the time comes.

Apparently, per a Coinbase Support post, Binance and Ledger aren’t alone in their support for the impending fork as San Francisco-based Coinbase, America’s foremost crypto startup valued at $8 billion, issued a similar announcement, telling its global customer base that it is ready to “minimize customer disruption.”

Revealing that extent of its support, the Coinbase Support team wrote:

We will pause sends and receives on the BCH wallets at Coinbase.com, in our iOS and Android apps, and at Coinbase Pro and Prime beginning at 8:00AM PST on 11/15/2018 (approximately 1 hour before the fork). Please be sure all BCH sends and receives are completed prior to that time.

As the fork occurs, Coinbase explained that it will actively monitor the Bitcoin Cash Network, before subsequently evaluating the network “and taking the appropriate next steps” to re-enable deposits and withdrawals of the crypto asset. If by any chance, multiple legitimate chains remain after the fork, Coinbase added that it would make sure that its clients will have access to the forked BCH.

Interestingly, unlike Binance, Coinbase has revealed support to facilitate the forked BCH.

At the time of writing, BCH is up 15.87% and is valued at $555.87 a piece as investors try to capitalize on this fork and what it could mean for the future of the network.

Title Image Courtesy of Marco Verch via Flickr