A large group of Japanese bitcoin exchanges have agreed to suspend bitcoin service on August 1, 2017, amid an expected major fork of the bitcoin codebase into essentially two separate currencies.
Bitcoin.com has the details:
The Japan Cryptocurrency Business Association has officially announced its plan on how to deal with the possibility of a Bitcoin protocol split on August 1. Thirteen of the group’s bitcoin exchange members, including Coincheck, Gmo-Z, Bitbank, and Bitpoint, will suspend bitcoin deposits and withdrawals on August 1 at 00:00 Japan time.
The consortium commented, “We decided to temporarily stop accepting bitcoin deposits and withdrawals at each exchange…We will stop only the services related to depositing and withdrawing bitcoins, but we will provide our regular services for other virtual currencies and legal currencies.”
The following 13 Japanese bitcoin exchanges have agreed to the plan so far:
- Bitbank Inc.
- Bitpoint Japan Co. Ltd.
- Quoine Co. Ltd.
- Fisco Cryptocurrency Exchange Inc.
- Coincheck Co. Ltd.
- Btc Box Co. Ltd.
- Tech Bureau Co. Ltd. (Zaif Exchange)
- GMO-Z.com Coin Co. Ltd.
- Campfire Corporation
- Bit Trade Co. Ltd.
- Bitcrements Bitcoin Exchange
- Tokyo Bitcoin Co. Ltd.
- Minnano Bitcoin
What this means for American and other international bitcoin exchanges remains to be seen. We could see similar actions at home and abroad, or the exchanges could simply whistle past the graveyard and ride the issue out until it wreaks havoc on the markets.
One thing is for sure: bitcoin and other cryptocurrency investors should expect extreme levels of volatility over the next two weeks as this very sticky situation gets sorted out.
Bitcoin was trading at $2,351 on Wednesday morning, up about 1%.