Bitcoin Exchange BTCC Pledges Support for SegWit2X, Plans Contingency for Hard Fork
Major Chinese exchange BTCC has thrown its support for the New York Agreement (BTC1), also known as Segwit2X as miners and developers agree on a scaling solution and, in the process, avoid a hard fork.
One of China’s ‘big three’ exchanges has publicly declared support for SegWit2X a key proposal that seeks to upgrade bitcoin by enacting the long-proposed code optimization known as SegWit, or Segregated Witness.
In a statement to clarify its position, BTCC wrote on its website:
BTCC fully supports the New York Agreement (BTC1) . The New York Agreement already has more than 80 percent of the network’s hashing power, and we hope that the community will reach consensus around this implementation of the bitcoin software.
To this end, BTCC further revealed it is ‘actively participating’ in both testing and implementing the scaling proposal. The Shanghai-based exchange is in the process of adopting upgrading its wallets to the new software, with upgrades expected to be complete by Friday, July 21st. Further, BTCC’s mining pool is already signaling support for the scaling solution with its wallets also being upgraded.
If support for the upgrade does not reach the required threshold of 80%, the ensuing hard fork would see the bitcoin blockchain split and create two bitcoins. In such an event, BTCC says its ‘highest priority’ would be securing customers’ funds.
‘In case of a hard fork, BTCC will give existing customers tokens on the minority chains based on how many tokens they have on the majority chain at the time of the hard fork,” BTCC added. The exchange further insisted it will always consider longest blockchain with the most hashing power as bitcoin (BTC).
Other exchanges planning contingencies in the event of a chain split include US-based GDAX and Chinese bitcoin giant OKCoin who will both suspend withdrawals, deposits and overall trading of bitcoin.
However, fears of a hard fork are falling by the wayside as bitcoin’s hashing might swells to signal for the upgrade.
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