Bitcoin Cash listed, Coinbase community outraged.
Two hours from publishing, Coinbase suddenly announced immediate listing of Bitcoin Cash (Bcash) to their trading platform. The announcement was met with community outrage on charges of potential insider trading as well as questions on Segwit “delays”. Specifically, it’s become increasingly likely that Coinbase delays with Segwit integration may have been an intentional move legading up to the altcoin listing.
boldInsider trading
hey @coinbase , @GDAX and @brian_armstrong by being part of a product index for @CMEGroup you agreed to certain rules. Since bch news was clearly leaked around 2:30pm CST to certain parties. this qualifies as insider trading. Hope you enjoy the incoming complaints.
— I am Nomad (@IamNomad) December 20, 2017
Crypto trader and influencer “I am Nomad” has filed a report to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission in light of the suspicious market movements prior to the announcement.
Done. pic.twitter.com/ULLf22zboV
— I am Nomad (@IamNomad) December 20, 2017
Coindesk contributor and full-stack developer Ariel Deschapell smells a rat.
Project lead at OpenBazaar and crypto-agnostic Brian Hoffman believes the abnormal price movements leading up to the announcement is “obvious” insider trading.
There certainly appear to be evidence of suspect elements at play with the Bcash price movements in the 24 hours prior to the Coinbase announcement. Trader “I am Nomad” highlighted ~2:30 PM PST as the trigger. This post will be updated if additional supporting evidence comes to the fore.
boldIntentional Segwit delays?
This onlooker is shocked at the fact that Coinbase prioritized Bcash listing despite facing major outages which could be alleviated by Segwit integration
Community outrage is amplified due to the fact that a large number of users are still locked out from withdrawing despite having previously verified accounts. The reaction is possible due to the fact that Coinbase have prioritized Bcash listing over higher priority items
Figures such as Bitcoin developer David A. Harding are showing public disapproval for the controversial move by Coinbase, going as far as to close their Coinbase accounts.
Coinbase and specifically CEO Brian Armstrong has had a history of making moves that in hindsight were entirely antithetical to Bitcoin’s value proposition as a censorship resistant store of value. The clear move in some people’s eyes is to boycott the exchange.
Market manipulation charges levied against Coinbase may become more severe if it’s clear that Segwit delays were intentional in the lead up to the Bcash listing. In an interview with Bloomberg, CEO Brian Armstrong stated with a straight face that Segwit integration was not a “top five” request of the userbase, despite the fact that Coinbase faces regular downtime which Segwit would help alleviate.
The commonly cited excuse up until now has been technical difficulties due to the size of Coinbase’s operation. The response is that other large exchanges such as Bitstamp have had no difficulty integrating Segwit immediately.
Additionally, Bitcoin-operations around the world were able to integrate Segwit seamlessly and swiftly despite having significantly smaller teams. Regardless of the scale of Coinbase’s operations, it’s clear that “technical difficulties” is not the primary reason behind the exchange dragging its feet on Segwit.
In fact, it’s plausible to believe that there was no intention to integrate Segwit until Bcash was listed as part of some behind-closed-doors handshake deal to promote the newly listed altcoin.
boldSelf-explanatory
Price predictions
BCH/USD shot up within minutes following announcement, with a similar opposite movement for BTC/USD. After corrections from the immediate reaction, Bitcoin appears to have strong support above $16500 after a dip from just below $18000, and Bcash is hovering around $3500 after a move from ~$2000. With outages on exchanges and a lack of liquidity, take the prices listed here with a pinch of salt.
While the near-term has been bullish for Bcash, it’s likely that the release of previously locked Bcash from Coinbase accounts will serve a major correction.
UPDATE (04h30 GMT) – WARNING: Beware of short-term price spikes due to lack of liquidity and network congestion. Refer to Coinmarketcap to see a more representative price.
Note: prices are subject to move drastically after publishing due to a highly volatile time in an already volatile market.
boldMoving forward
The writing has been on the wall for quite some time now. Some would argue that Coinbase no longer has Bitcoin’s best interests at heart. Is it time for them to join Bitcoin.com on the bad list?
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