Bitcoin Cash, created by Bitcoin hard fork, became an apple of discord between Coinbase, refusing to support the new currency, and its customers, angrily requesting their share of bitcoin cash from the company.
In keeping with Bitcoin Cash news, the creation of Bitcoin Cash, resulted from the split of the Bitcoin, and, more particularly, contentious ‘hard fork’, has done more than split the digital currency, dividing allegiances between exchanges and crypto community as a whole. Coinbase, one of the leading and most popular exchanges globally, has notified that it will not support the fork, depriving its users of access to the new version of Bitcoin.
This position directly contradicts to common property laws, according to which the product of an asset also belongs to the owner of the original asset.
In such a way, despite Bitcoin holders are entitled to an equal amount of the Bitcoin Cash, they, being the customers of Coinbase can’t get it, thus being deprived of what is rightfully belong to them.
Prior to the split Coinbase, together with several other exchanges, that have refused to handle Bitcoin Cash, provided a FAQ answer page where they said:
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.
This way, everyone who had moved their funds off of Coinbase and maintained their private keys, got awarded with an amount of bitcoin cash equivalent to their bitcoin legacy holdings. Still there were those who hadn’t.
In respond to the illegitimate actions of the exchange, Coinbase’s customers have posted a lot of angry and accusatory messages on its forums and even went further setting up the website called Coinbase Bitcoin Cash Lawsuit Portal for customers to organize. The site was apparently created to bring Coinbase customers together and initiate the start of legal proceedings. The site reads:
Our ultimate aim is work with Coinbase, Inc to help them understand the user community’s concerns and take the correct and appropriate action of allowing users to trade or withdraw the Bitcoin Cash tokens that rightfully belong to them following the 8/1/2017 Bitcoin hard fork. However, Coinbase needs to understand that the community is ready and willing to pursue legal action if their BCH tokens continue to be withheld by Coinbase Inc, resulting in tangible and significant financial loss.
Now Coinbase will definitely experience great pressure applied to them regarding the bitcoin cash, which could escalate into a burdensome and pricy legal affair.
Still, Coinbase may change its decision as this kind of situation is not something new to the exchange. Coinbase decided to give their customer base access to the Ethereum Classic when Ethereum split last year. It took some time, though. A similar scenario could play out and Coinbase that has said that if in the future, it decides to support Bitcoin Cash, it will distribute the balances that accrue at the time of the Aug. 1 fork.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin Cash pared an early advance and was trading at $469.24, up 75%, after peaking around $728, or up nearly 130%, earlier Wednesday, when its total market value hit about $11 billion. Now, despite recent fall, market cap of the new version of Bitcoin is still third largest among all digital currencies making more than $7,3B with $445,83 coin price at a press time. Analyzing the Bitcoin Cash’s surges and drops experts predict rather volatile time for the cryptocurrency.
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