Bitcoin Cash Fork Watch: BCH Infrastructure Providers Reveal Contingency Plans

There’s only 10 days left until the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network hard fork scheduled for Nov. 15. At the moment the upgrade has two competing BCH clients with different ruleset changes, so the upcoming fork could cause a chain split. Because of the contention over certain upgrade proposals, a slew of exchanges and wallet providers have revealed their contingency plans for the upcoming consensus change.

Also read: Developers Launch BDIP: A Bitcoin Cash Proposal Process for Decentralized Apps  

Hard Fork Contingency Plans Are Laid Out

Bitcoin Cash fans have a lot going on over the next week as the community is expecting a fork on Nov. 15, but this time around the consensus changes are somewhat contentious. At the time of publication, there is a disagreement between the two developing teams Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV, which could lead to a network split. Until recently, Bitasiaex, Coinex, and Ledger Wallet were the major companies to have detailed their plans for the fork, but since then a tidal wave of other businesses have come forward.  

Binance and Coinbase

For instance, on Nov. 2 the trading platforms Coinbase and Binance disclosed how the companies plan to handle the fork situation. Binance announced it plans to “support the upcoming Bitcoin Cash hard fork” in a blog post published that morning.

“Binance would like to confirm support for the upcoming Bitcoin Cash hard fork. We will take a snapshot of all Bitcoin Cash balances at UNIX time 1542300000, 2018/11/15 4:40:00 PM (UTC),” the exchange wrote. “Deposits and withdrawals of bitcoin cash will be suspended starting from 2018/11/15 3:00:00 PM (UTC).”

Binance continued by stating that it will follow up with a second announcement after the fork. The exchange concluded by stating that Binance users can refer to the 2018 BCH upgrade Github repository published by the Bitcoin ABC team.   

After the statements from Binance, 12 hours later Coinbase published an announcement concerning the BCH network fork. The San Francisco exchange detailed the service is “prepared to support the published roadmap from Bitcoincash.org,” and also linked to the Github repository page published by the Bitcoin ABC team. Coinbase said in its blog post that approximately one hour before the fork the business will pause BCH transactions. The company explained that customers can be sure their funds will remain safe at Coinbase. “In the unlikely event that multiple viable chains persist after the fork, Coinbase will ensure that customers have access to their funds on each chain,” the organization emphasized.

Poloniex and Kucoin

On Nov. 5, Poloniex exchangem which is owned by Circle Financial, revealed its plans to support the Nov. 15 BCH fork and pause transactions. According to the trading platform, the exchange will take a snapshot of all BCH balances prior to the fork and stop BCH transactions during the upgrade. “Once the network stabilizes, we will make an announcement and re-enable deposits and withdrawals,” explained Poloniex. The trading platform concluded by stating that users can also refer to the Bitcoin ABC roadmap.

The same day, the Kucoin cryptocurrency exchange explained it would be supporting the Bitcoin ABC hard fork roadmap. Before the fork takes place, Kucoin will take a balance snapshot and suspend BCH transactions. “Deposits and withdrawals of BCH will be suspended at 23:00:00 on November 15th, 2018 (UTC+8),” explained the trading platform.  

Wallet Providers Trezor and Cointext

On Twitter, the hardware wallet company Trezor explained to the cryptocurrency community its plan for the upcoming fork. Trezor detailed that its server runs the Bitcoin ABC client and will follow with the development team’s upgrade proposal. “There is no replay protection, so users have to take their own measures to split the coins on other chains that may emerge,” Trezor emphasized. It added, “Electron Cash supports Trezor and supports all chains, so users can select the server supporting the chain they want to use.”

Another BCH wallet provider, Cointext, has published contingency plans in regard to the fork on Nov. 15. The wallet provider has said all Cointext BCH access numbers will remain fully available to users and the company will read from the blockchain as it exists on nodes running Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin Unlimited. “Cointext will broadcast transactions so that those transactions have the highest probability of being accepted by nodes running every ruleset and mined into every blockchain on the network,” the organization detailed.

Centbee and Cashpay

On Oct. 5, the BCH wallet provider Centbee had outlined its plans for the fork and published a Medium post about the situation on Twitter. “Our users hold their own private keys and will not be affected by the November 15 fork,” Centbee explained on the social media outlet. “We support the Bitcoin SV node and the efforts of all those in the Bitcoin Cash community that seek stability,” the team adds.

Centbee and Cashpay Solutions have indicated support for the Bitcoin SV node.

Additionally, the company Cashpay Solutions has indicated that it also supports the Bitcoin SV node. The company hasn’t made an official announcement, but according to Coin Dance the analytical data website, Cashpay Solutions does not support Bitcoin ABC. 

Lots of Exchanges and Wallet Providers Have Come Forward With More to Come

Overall, quite a few exchanges and wallet providers have come forward and there will likely be more statements during the course of next week. In addition to the announcements above, our own Bitcoin.com Wallet, Block Explorer, and other services are currently running “Bitcoin ABC 18.2 with Bitcoin Unlimited 1.5.0.0 as the clients powering our services.” Additionally, another exchange called Bitz revealed on Reddit it would support the November fork, but the platform didn’t detail which implementation they would be running. Lastly, the developer of Yours.org and the Money Button, Ryan X Charles, published a video on what he thinks exchanges and wallets should do to prepare for the fork. Charles explains that he believes infrastructure providers should support both sides if there’s a split. The Money Button creator says he will be looking into this idea in order to implement it into the Money Button wallet.

What do you think about the network hard fork approaching and the two disagreeing parties involved? What are your thoughts on the decisions exchanges and wallets have detailed so far? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Images via Shutterstock, and the BCH infrastructure providers mentioned above.

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