Share this article
Coinbase Halts Bitcoin Cash Trading Abruptly After Launch
Coinbase launched bitcoin cash exchange trading Tuesday, but operations were anything but smooth. The feature was abruptly pulled after going live.
By Pete Rizzo
Updated Sep 13, 2021, 7:17 a.m. Published Dec 20, 2017, 2:40 a.m.
Make us preferred on Google
Shortly after the sudden news it would add support for the cryptocurrency bitcoin cash, U.S. exchange startup Coinbase has already moved to disable trading of its newest asset.
Announced today via a blog post to users, the decision to add the cryptocurrency, the third-largest by market capitalization, comes months after developers backing the effort cloned the bitcoin blockchain, effectively creating a competing network that claimed to enable a greater volume of transactions.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
Using a mechanism called a hard fork, however, the project created unique complications for exchanges, as by copying bitcoin's ledger at the time of the split, Coinbase users who held bitcoin were effectively owners of bitcoin cash as well.
As such, a sudden influx of users armed with capital appears to have put a strain on the exchange, the most well-capitalized in the U.S. market.
At press time, buying and selling of bitcoin cash were disabled on the platform, with the last quoted price listed at nearly $9,000, more than $6,000 above the market price of $2,900, according to data provider CoinMarketCap.
According to the exchange's official status blog, trading was disabled after about four minutes after it began. Trading went live at 17:20 PST and was pulled back to post-only mode at 17:24, records show.
"All BCH books will enter cancel-only mode, and all existing orders will be cleared. While in cancel-only mode, no new orders will be accepted. We will post an update shortly," the exchange wrote at 18:30 PST, and later tweeted.
The service outage does not appear to have affected either the exchange's other assets or its Coinbase brokerage service, which allows users to buy and sell bitcoin, ether and litecoin.
Representatives for Coinbase did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Coinbase.
Trading image via Shutterstock
More For You
Pudgy Penguins is building a multi-vertical consumer IP platform — combining phygital products, games, NFTs and PENGU to monetize culture at scale.
What to know:
Pudgy Penguins is emerging as one of the strongest NFT-native brands of this cycle, shifting from speculative “digital luxury goods” into a multi-vertical consumer IP platform. Its strategy is to acquire users through mainstream channels first; toys, retail partnerships and viral media, then onboard them into Web3 through games, NFTs and the PENGU token.
The ecosystem now spans phygital products (> $13M retail sales and >1M units sold), games and experiences (Pudgy Party surpassed 500k downloads in two weeks), and a widely distributed token (airdropped to 6M+ wallets). While the market is currently pricing Pudgy at a premium relative to traditional IP peers, sustained success depends on execution across retail expansion, gaming adoption and deeper token utility.
More For You
Binance to shift $1 billion user protection fund into bitcoin amid market rout
Binance will convert the stablecoin holdings in its $1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users to bitcoin over the next 30 days, with plans for regular audits.
What to know:
- Binance will convert the stablecoin holdings in its $1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users to bitcoin over the next 30 days, with plans for regular audits.
- The exchange has pledged to replenish the fund to $1 billion if bitcoin price swings cause its value to fall below $800 million.
- Binance framed the change as part of its long-term industry-building efforts.
Top Stories
