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While Binance will support the Steem hard fork to freeze $6M in user funds, CZ offered support to additional forks.
Changpeng Zhao, or CZ, the chief executive of top crypto exchange Binance, has issued a statement regarding the recent Steem hard fork that sought to freeze 23.6 million STEEM tokens associated with 64 wallet addresses.
Binance will support the fork, however, indicating that they will support future forks executed by those affected within the Steem community.
Steem fork attracts controversy
The latest fork was ostensibly intended to protect against malicious actors in the Steem network, however, critics have accused the project of seeking to punish proponents of the Hive hard fork and detractors of Steemitâs owner as of February, Justin Sun.
Binance previously was criticized for aiming Sun in a hostile ousting of the networkâs former validators via fork during early March, however, CZ quickly withdrew support for the fork claiming that Sun and Steem had misled him as to the nature of an âupdateâ.
CZ issues statement
In a statement posted on May 24, CZ grappled with conflicted feelings on the fork:
âWe are very much against zeroing other peopleâs assets on the blockchain. This goes against the very ethos of blockchain and decentralization,â he stated.
âThe fact that this can happen on a blockchain means it is overly centralized.â
Despite emphasizing that Binance does not want to support this upgrade, CZ notes that âthere is a flip side.â
âIf we donât support it (technically), no users can withdraw any STEEM coins. The wallet stopped syncing at a certain height, and there are no other forks,â he added.
âWe do not want to block peopleâs funds. In this case, we should allow users to withdraw their funds, whether we willingly support this hard fork or not.â
Binance open to supporting additional forks
CZ expresses sympathy with those targeted by the recent Steem fork, however, concluded that the broader Steem will benefit from Binance supporting the upgrade.
Binance recommends that those whose funds were seized create yet another fork of Steem, noting that Binance âwill likely support that.âÂ
Could Steemâs actions result in litigation?
On May 21, popular cryptocurrency advocate and analyst, Andreas Antonopolous, predicted that Steemâs move to freeze $6 million in user funds âwill result in a class action lawsuit,â adding: âthe exchanges that participate in this will also be name defendants.â
In 2018, OKCoin was sued by an investor for preventing him from cashing out of Bitcoin Cash at its peak in the countryâs first lawsuit involving a hard fork.
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