The Bitcoin fork earlier this year that led to a separate cryptocurrency, BitcoinCash (symbol usually BCH, some use BCC), was seen as a big scam or ‘coingrab’ by some, as an overdue improvement by others.

More info on BitcoinCash, the fork, and why you are entitled to have the same amount of BCH that you held in BTC at the time of the fork on their official website:

http://bitcoincash.org

In any case it was a nice cash-airdrop for anyone who held Bitcoins (BTC) at the time of the fork: automatically, after the fork, you would own the exact same amount of BitcoinCash (BCH) on the new blockchain. IF you could get it. Currently 1 BTC is worth around 7 BCH, so you would not have doubled the Dollar-worth of your crypto portfolio, but still – basically free cash, almost like the FED is creating their fantasy fiat money out of thin air… xD

The process of claiming those shiny new coins and transferring them over to a new BCH wallet was a little cumbersome for non-technical folks.

So most wallet developers (e.g. Exodus, Bither and many others) as well as Exchanges and Trading platforms that run BTC accounts for their customers provided easy ways to claim BitcoinCash automatically, determining the correct amount, and helping the client to transfer the new currency to a fresh BCH address.

Most were very transparent about the process and posted clear and concise public statements, like the crypto-trading platform Bittrex in this support article.

Some, like the Faucet/gambling site Freebit.co.in, automatically let their users claim BCH and converted it to BTC on the spot. Good business for them (Dollar value of BCH went up a lot since then), but still easy and relatively fair for the customer.

Other companies, however, decided to use the new coins to bolster their own pockets.

If you have a Bitcoin address where you have control over the private key (e.g. in your local wallet on your computer or mobile device), there is no problem: you can claim your BCH even months later, the blockchain remembers.

But many online wallets, crypto trading platforms, exchanges etc. basically run your Bitcoin address as an escrow account: you may use it, but they control the private keys.

AFAIK you can NOT claim BCH for the BTC amount that you held in those wallets at the time of the fork – unless the owners give you a way to do it.

As I mentioned before – most did.

Others were very silent on the issue.

Wirex for example.

Actually one of my preferred Bitcoin-related companies, or used to be.

They provide Bitcoin-based debit cards, and their service works great. Check out their site >>>here<<<

Many have claimed from the start that Wirex was always intended to be a huge scam and a catastrophe waiting to happen, and referred to the allegedly somewhat questionable background of the founder.

I never paid much attention to those claims, since I only hold small amounts of BTC/cash in my Wirex account, and their card has been quite useful so far.

But their dubious handling of the BCH fork fuels those old claims and suspicions.

Wirex provided a lengthy and very technical explanation of what was happening with the fork and SegWit and whatnot and that they would freeze BTC transactions for a bit during the fork, etc. – but did not waste one single word on the fact that their 800.000 customers (their claim, as well as the alleged 1 Billion Dollar transaction volume) would be entitled to handsome amounts of BitcoinCash, depending on how much BTC Wirex was holding for them at the moment of the fork.

A search for ‘Bitcoin Cash’ on their website shows that they have been very silent, actually TOTALLY silent on that whole story. Not ONCE is BitcoinCash actually named and discussed, not even in articles that discuss ‘The future of Bitcoin’ and the like.

Wonder why?

Let’s assume that their 800K customers are mostly poor suckers (like me 😉 ) and hold just around 100 bucks worth of Bitcoin in their accounts, on average.

Very conservative estimate.

That would be at least around 80 Mio Dollar worth of Bitcoin that Wirex controls.

Since they have not given their customers access to their BitcoinCash balances after the fork, Wirex is now sitting on at least roughly 12 Mio Dollar worth of BitcoinCash.

And the actual numbers are most likely WAY higher since many of their clients move quite some Bitcoins around…

So, what is happening there?

Are they intentionally scamming their customers out of their BCHs?

Are they too lazy to provide a technical solution?

I asked.

Publicly on Twitter.

The response was fluffy and nice and asked me to clarify this with support via the ticket system.

Hmm. Why not publicly state: ‘Yes, we are working on a solution, stay tuned.’ or ‘No. We are keeping your BitcoinCash. Deal with it.‘

No balls?

OK – I did contact their support (they were usually very helpful and friendly in the past, btw), very politely asking about the issue and possible solutions.

I got a canned reply referring me to the already mentioned lenghty techno-babble article about SegWit and the fork (that did not even name BitcoinCash in connection with the fork, cuz reasons). Absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand, no solution.

Wirex has a technologically very competent team, so it is definitely not ignorance or lack of awareness. They know exactly what I am talking about and why they do NOT want to talk about it.

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

At best it is an insane lack of transparency, more likely a big hit scamming their customers out of Millions of Dollars.

Consequence?

I would be VERY cautious what amount of money or Bitcoin you hold in a Wirex account.

A company that handles an event of the scale (and monetary worth) of the BitcoinCash fork in such a questionable way and refuses to provide explanations or solutions can simply not be trusted.

P.S.: if Wirex steps up and provides a reasonable explanation or – even better – solution for their customers, I will happily amend this article.

P.P.S.: Update – a brief research in blockchain explorers shows that Wirex indeed grabbed the BCH that belonged to their customers, all BCH already have been transferred out, several of the receiving accounts sit on a couple 1000 BCH… so YES, Wirex ran a major scam here, and every Wirex customer, esp. those that held more than my symbolic amounts in their accounts, should be FURIOUS and kick their ass.

Final Update 10/20/2017: meanwhile Wirex HAS indeed published a statement on Bitcoin Cash and the upcoming Bitcoin Gold fork. Guess I was not the only pissed off customer. They now sell their ‘support’ for the forks as a great service and huge improvement, while in fact they grabbed the BCH from their clients right after the fork, probably sold off when BCH was around 700 Dollar, now might eventually pay out their clients after it has fallen to around 400…. Funny folks, indeed.

If you have other examples of online wallets, escrow services or companies like Wirex that snatched their users’ BitcoinCash after the fork – please comment below.