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If the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hard fork has caused something in the market, it was certainly chaos. Soon after the fork the bear market decided to use its pawns to devour the crypto market and many exchanges are having issues with clients over the fork.
While the second largest exchange in the world, OKEx, had its fair share of problems because it decided to shut down the Bitcoin Cash positions of the clients, Coinbase is facing another issue: its users are furious because the exchange will not let them withdraw their assets.
This new controversy started as Coinbase, the largest exchange in the United States, has followed the trend of other companies like Binance and Kraken and adopted the fork. However, it decided that it was more secure to lock the funds and await their “stability”.
Crypto investors like being told what they can do even less than regular investors in the mainstream industry, so you can probably guess what happened next. People are furious with Coinbase. The decision was allegedly taken to protect the investors, however, BCH lost 40% of its value since then.
It is very easy to see a lot of angry people at r/Coinbase, for instance, as they believe that it is their right to take their tokens and do whatever they want with it. Looks like some people did not know how centralized exchanges work.
Coinbase Dodges The Blame
What has Coinbase answered to the angry mobs? That it is not their fault. According to a tweet of Coinbase Support, they simply have “no control” over the situation. They believe that there is technical instability in the network after the hard fork and they will not back down on their decision.
As a reminder to our customers, Coinbase has no control over the timing of the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) fork, and cannot provide specific guidance as to when the network will be safe and stable enough to re-enable access. More details can be found in our blog: https://t.co/2PLKq2sIkF
— Coinbase Support (@CoinbaseSupport) November 17, 2018
It’s a tough decision, really. Coinbase has been dead set on its instance of not letting its customers suffer any risk, even if it means that they will lose a lot of money. The truth is that the stability of the BCH network is very questionable at the time as both Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCH ABC) and Bitcoin Cash Satoshi Vision (BCH SV) are fighting for the hash control.
While most of the other exchanges are letting users trade, it should be noted that they are not as regulated as Coinbase and that the company could suffer severe legal problems if it allowed its users to trade and they lost money due to technical glitches like the lack of replay protection.
Users are discussing heatedly the issue and there is no consensus. While some users understand that Coinbase is being responsible, others feel like the exchange is ripping them off because other exchanges are letting their users trade and Coinbase does not even let them withdraw their assets.
Is Coinbase doing the right thing? It’s hard to say. Clearly, the company is very concerned about protecting itself. It does not want to be sued, so it rathers lose the clients than doing something about it, but there is some truth in the fact that the network is very unstable. Coinbase can certainly be criticized for not communicating the possibility of issues more clearly before the fork, though.
The truth is that, whether Coinbase is to blame or not, there is hardly anyone else to be blamed more than certain members of the Bitcoin Cash community for not being able to agree and causing such instability in their own community.
If centralization may prevent you from reaching your money, decentralization means that you have to be responsible with your network and affirmations like Craig Wright’s when he said that he would attack Bitcoin ABC is hardly responsible at all. Quite the contrary, actually. We all hope that the BCH community is able to sort itself out, but they look to be in a fairly bad situation now.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.