By
Kseniia Klichova
April 16th, 2024
GDAX, operated by Coinbase, pledges to launch support for Bitcoin Cash having examined security and regulatory-related issues, customer demand, and trading volumes.
GDAX, the cryptocurrency exchange operated by Coinbase, has made public its intention to launch support for Bitcoin Cash (BCC or BCH) by January 1, 2018.
A week earlier Coinbase stated that it refuses to accept the new blockchain and currency, giving its customers the possibility to withdraw their BTC’s from the platform:
Coinbase will not support the BCC blockchain or digital currency. Any bitcoin within customers’ accounts will remain accessible on the main blockchain only. If you wish to have access to both BTC and BCC, please be sure to send your BTC off the platform by July 31.
Responding to this, exchange’s customers posted a lot of accusatory messages on its forums and even set up the website called Coinbase Bitcoin Cash Lawsuit Portal for customers to organize. Some even threatened to sue the company for depriving of what is rightfully belong to them.
Coinbase, in its turn, highlighted that the company is not ultimately opposed to adding new assets in the future:
Our goal is to be the safest, most trusted and compliant, and easiest to use. Not the first to market with new assets. Especially at scale, it takes time to ensure any new asset we add is well tested and secure.
And Coinbase’s investors share its position:
There’s no one on the board or any investor who doesn’t completely back the point of view that we should err on the side of safety and trust. From an investor’s point of view, we invested in Coinbase because they have made a voluntary commitment to be regulated.
Now Adam White, GM at GDAX, has announced that the exchange has decided to add support for Bitcoin Cash, after assessing all relevant issues:
Our top priority is always the safety of customer funds and we spend extensive time designing, building, testing and auditing our systems to ensure that the digital assets we support remain safe and secure. We may not always be first in adding an asset, but if we do, you can be sure that we have invested significant time and care into supporting that digital asset securely. We believe this is the best approach for us to maintain customer trust and ensure a fair and orderly market.
Over the last several days, we’ve examined all of the relevant issues and have decided to work on adding support for bitcoin cash for all GDAX customers. We made this decision based on factors such as the security of the network, customer demand, trading volumes, and regulatory considerations.
According to the blog post, GDAX plans to have support for Bitcoin Cash by January 1, 2018 “assuming no additional risks emerge during that time”:
Once supported, customers will be able to withdraw bitcoin cash from GDAX. We’ll make a determination at a later date whether or not we will also support trading of bitcoin cash. In the meantime, all customer’s bitcoin cash will remain safely stored on GDAX.
After all, the statement notably only accounts for GDAX, and makes no mention of Coinbase’s plans for its wallet service.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin Cash, after the succession of surges and drops following each other, is no more the third largest crypto-currency taking now the fourth place with market cap making slightly more than $5,2B and $317,32 coin price at a press time.