Three of Indian’s top bitcoin exchanges have revealed that they won’t be supporting Bitcoin Cash, the new digital currency that is expected to result from a user activated hard fork (UAHF) on the 1 August.
The three exchanges that have made the announcements are Zebpay, Unocoin and Coinsecure. As well as stating that they have no plans to support Bitcoin Cash, all three will be suspending bitcoin services during the planned hard fork.
Zebpay, which hit a notable milestone in May when it reached over 500,000 installs of its app-only service on Android, announced on Thursday that it won’t be supporting Bitcoin Cash. In an updated company blog post, Zebpay said:
" If you want access to Bitcoin Cash, please remove your bitcoins from your Zebpay wallet to a wallet in which you control the private keys on or before 31st July. If you leave your bitcoins in Zebpay, Bitcoin Cash will not be available to you. You will of course continue to have access to the Bitcoins in your Zebpay app.
It also stated that the sending and receiving of bitcoins will be suspended from 31 July at 10 p.m. to 2 August until 10 a.m. During this time users will not be able to withdraw or add bitcoins to their Zebpay app.
Unocoin, which partnered with San Francisco-based bitcoin payments company Bitwage to allow India-based workers, employees and businesses to receive faster payments, said that they have a contingency plan in place in the event of a user activated soft fork (UASF), SegWit2x upgrade or a network split by supporting the chain with the majority.
However, the company added that it won’t be supporting other ‘weaker chains.’
In a blog post, the company said:
Unocoin has not planned or equipped to support other shorter and weaker chains if they pop up.
In order to avoid any loss of customers’ coins via replay attacks, Unocoin announced there will be a system maintenance of the site between 30 July until 4 August.
Coinsecure, which saw the exchange struggling to process withdrawals in May due to soaring interest and adoption of bitcoin in India, is the third bitcoin exchange to reveal that it may or may not support Bitcoin Cash.
In a blog post, Coinsecure said:
In the event of this User Activated Hard Fork, Coinsecure may or may not support BCC. We will consistently service the most used chain, even BCC, if it becomes the dominant coin.
Yet, it added that if users are interested in accessing Bitcoin Cash they will need to remove their bitcoin from their Coinsecure wallet by the 31 July at 9 p.m. IST.
It added:
As the protection of your funds is a top priority, we will disable Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals from our exchange starting at 9pm IST on July 31st. All Bitcoin that you have stored on Coinsecure will remain secure during a potential hard fork.