Exchange Consortium Plans for Hard Fork

Announcements, Blockchain, News | March 20, 2017 By: Bruce Haring

Bitcoin Unlimited will be listed as its own exchange if a hard fork becomes reality, according to a statement issued by 20 major exchanges.

The planned response to any split of bitcoin into two separate pools of currency and processing power – the so-called “hard fork” that’s increasingly seen as likely – is coming to a tipping point, many believe.

Bitcoin prices reflected those concerns, beginning last week. Bitcoin hit a low of $944.36 on Saturday, but has recovered slightly as of today, rising to $1,050 at mid-day.

Signatories to the statement include such major players as Kraken and BitStamp. In the statement, the companies announced they will let users trade the current version of bitcoin and any alternatives that emerge. Bitcoin Unlimited will be designated as BTU or XBU in any hardfork version, with the traditional bitcoin listed as BTC or XBT. All exchanges that are party to the statement vowed to process deposits and withdrawals in BTC until assured that the new blockchain has strong two-way protections are met.

“As exchanges in the Bitcoin ecosystem, we face certain challenges that are unique to us,” said the statement from the bitcoin exchanges. “Specifically, we are collectively faced with addressing the very real possibility that a Bitcoin network split may occur in the future. We’d like to take the time to update the community on the procedure that we, as an industry, intend to follow in the event of a contentious hardfork activating on the Bitcoin network.”

The statement claimed it was not made to pass judgment on any hard fork event. “If miners want to direct their hashing power to an alternative and incompatible protocol implementation, that is their right. We believe, however, that such hardforks should be engendered through a consensus of miners and users and, at this time, we have not achieved consensus.”