On August 1, Bitcoin Cash, a hard fork proposal initially developed as Bitcoin ABC by Bitmain was officially activated. Shortly thereafter, ViaBTC, a major Chinese mining pool mined the first Bitcoin Cash block.
Because Bitcoin Cash is a hard forked alternative cryptocurrency (altcoin) of the bitcoin blockchain, every bitcoin holder is credited with Bitcoin Cash based on a 1:1 ratio. For instance, a bitcoin investor that holds 10 BTC should have been credited with 10 BCH after the execution of the hard fork.
Bitcoin Wallets That Support Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
For bitcoin holders who store their funds on non-custodial wallet platforms, the process of obtaining BCH can be more difficult. Although there exists some open source and noncustodial bitcoin wallet platforms such as Breadwallet that have provided users with an easy method of obtaining BCH, holders of bitcoin on non-custodial platforms usually need to undergo a manual process and use their private keys to be credited with BCH.
On August 3, Breadwallet received praises from the community for its plan to credit users with BCH. In theory, Breadwallet cannot credit users with BCH because users on non-custodial wallet platforms such as Breadwallet have absolute control over their private keys. Instead, the Breadwallet development team announced that it plans to create an application within the wallet platform that will allow users to easily transfer their BCH out of the wallet to an external address.
“It is your money, and you deserve easy access to it! Our current plan is to add a simple feature to the existing breadwallet app, that will let users send their entire balance of BCH to an address of their choosing. Using this newest feature to send out your BCH can only be done once, to a single address, and will include all the BCH your breadwallet held at the time the fork happened,” said Breadwallet.
Coinbase also recently clarified on August 3 that it will allow users and account holders to withdraw BCH by January 18. In its latest update, Coinbase stated:
“We are planning to have support for bitcoin cash by January 1, 2018, assuming no additional risks emerge during that time. Once supported, customers will be able to withdraw bitcoin cash. We’ll make a determination at a later date about adding trading support.”
The full list of noncustodial wallet platforms that have explicitly provided users with simple methods of withdrawing BCH are as follows:
- Trezor (hardware wallet): Enabled BCH withdrawals with beta wallet, tutorial can be accessed here.
- Ledger (hardware wallet): “If your Bitcoin funds are on a Ledger hardware wallet device, you will automatically get an additional BCH balance,” said the Ledger team.
- Jaxx (mobile wallet): “Leave your Bitcoin (BTC) untouched in Jaxx until the full integration of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) goes live,” said the Jaxx team. The integration of BCH will allow users to withdraw BCH from Jaxx.
- KeepKey (hardware wallet): KeepKey will partner with ShapeShift to allow users to withdraw BCH. Official announcement can be accessed here.
- BTC.com (mobile wallet): Immediately credit users and accounts with BCH after the fork. Full announcement can be accessed here.
- Coinbase (web and mobile custodial wallet): Coinbase is a custodial wallet and private keys are controlled by the company. But, it is the largest wallet platform in the world and was included in the list.
- Breadwallet (mobile wallet)
- BitcoinABC (mobile wallet)
- Bitcoin Classic (mobile wallet)
- Coinomi (mobile wallet)
- Freewallet (mobile wallet)
Bitcoin Exchanges That Support BCH
The vast majority of bitcoin exchanges in China and South Korea are supporting BCH while only 2 out of 5 leading bitcoin exchanges in the U.S. bitcoin exchange market have plans to immediately support BCH. All bitcoin exchanges in the Chinese market will enable BCH withdrawals and the majority of them aim to enable BCH/BTC trading in the upcoming months.
The full list of exchanges Supporting BCH by Region:
- Chinese bitcoin exchange market
- OKCoin: supporting Bitcoin Cash as altcoin, listed BCH/BTC trading pair.
- Huobi: supporting BCH as altcoin, will list BCH in its trading platform
- BTCC: supporting BCH as altcoin, will list on BTCC China trading platform
- Yunbi: supporting BCH as altcoin, not yet decided on trading
- CHBTC: supporting BCH as altcoin, not yet decided on trading
- BTC38: supporting BCH as a fork of bitcoin, not yet decided on trading
- ViaBTC: supporting BCH as a technical solution of bitcoin, listed for trading
- U.S. bitcoin exchange market:
- Kraken: supporting BCH withdrawal and trading
- Bitfinex: supporting BCH withdrawal
- Bittrex: supporting BCH withdrawal
- South Korean bitcoin exchange market:
- Bithumb: supporting BCH withdrawal
- Korbit: supporting BCH withdrawal, enabled Bitcoin Cash trading on August 4.
- Singaporean bitcoin exchange market:
- QuoineEX: supporting BCH withdrawal
- Other regions:
- BTCBox
- QuadrigaCX
- Mercury Cash
- Bitcoins Norway
- Lykke
- Coinspot
- Walltime
Technical Issues and Why Investors Should Not Rush Into Withdraw Bitcoin Cash
For traders, investors and users that have bitcoin stored on non-custodial bitcoin wallet platforms and exchanges that support Bitcoin Cash, it is not recommended to rush into withdraw Bitcoin Cash. At the moment, because it is still a relatively new cryptocurrency, it is having several technical issues.
On August 3, ViabTC mined an empty BCH block and several blocks that were abnormally small. Bitcoin developer Ben Verret revealed that ViaBTC also mined a 100 KB block and a 43 KB block, after initially mining a 1.9 MB block.
More to that, bitcoin analysts Ari Paul and Henry Brade emphasized that the price of BCH seems high as of current because users can’t deposit BCH to exchanges and trade it for bitcoin or other currencies.
“Reality check: can’t get BCH on to either Bittrex or Kraken. Price isn’t real if sellers can’t sell,” said Paul.
Brade also noted that a crash is imminent once BCH deposits are enabled. Brade explained, “In case you’re wondering why the BCH price seems high: It’s because no one can deposit BCH to exchanges. Once this changes, expect a crash.”
In consideration of the these factors and the decision of Coinbase to credit all accounts in January of 2018, investors, traders and users should refrain from hastily withdrawing their BCH and wait until the BCH network stabilizes.
