Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Fork: Poloniex Announces Pre-fork Trading Support

Popular cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex announced on November 7, 2018, the trading support for two competing cryptocurrency tokens, Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash SV. The scheduled Bitcoin Cash hard-fork goes live on November 15, 2018.

Poloniex Takes a Neutral Stand
The upcoming Bitcoin Cash (BCH) fork is due on November 15, 2018, and there are two competing development teams proposing two different consensus protocols to become the next implemented fork. In the scenario, Poloniex opted for a neutral position and announced that it was opening trading for both tokens before the fork is implemented.

The announcement made by Poloniex regarding the upcoming BCH fork states:

“We believe the responsible thing for an exchange to do is remain neutral, and we want to empower the community to demonstrate their support through trading activity. Therefore, starting on November 7th, 2018, Poloniex is offering customers the option to trade two tokens at the center of the debate about the pending Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hard fork: Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCHABC) and Bitcoin Cash SV (BCHSV), prior to the November 15 fork.”

BCH Pre-Fork Trading
According to the announcement, the exchange has allowed pre-fork trading from November 7. Subsequently, Poloniex will move forward with the winning protocol once the fork is complete. Until then, the exchange will enable trading for the following pairs: BCHSV/USDC, BCHABC/USDC, BCHSV/BTC, and BCHABC/BTC.

The exchange is also opening a BCH/USDC market so that users can convert bitcoin cash into BCHABC and BCHSV and vice-versa to withdraw funds. Customers are allowed to trade, but cannot withdraw BCHABC and BCHSV before the fork is implemented.

Poloniex offers a conversion tool which can be found in the upper right-hand corner of the exchange’s trading platform. The pre-fork trading started on November 7 and will continue till November 15, when the exchange will pause all BCH deposits and withdrawals at 14:00 UTC.

At 15:00 UTC, the BCH, BCHABC, and BCHSV markets will be frozen and all outstanding orders will be canceled and a snapshot of the blockchain will be taken.

Once the snapshot is taken, the fork will be implemented and the users holding BCH at this time will immediately receive an equivalent amount of BCHABC and BCHSV. After that, the BCH market will be disabled and all balances will be zero.

Poloniex will allow withdrawals from both blockchains as soon as the network stabilizes. The exchange will also be implementing its own replay protection to broadcast replay-protected withdrawals on each chain.

Customers need to ensure that all transactions are completed before the pause starts. Poloniex will open trading and re-enable deposits and withdrawals once the networks stabilize. During the pause, Poloniex will ensure that all the customers’ tokens are stored safely.