Coinbase to Support Both Bitcoin Blockchains Following SegWit2x Fork

 Bitcoin exchange Coinbase has  announced it will support both competing blockchains following the  proposed SegWit2x hard fork that is scheduled for November.

Coinbase made the announcement in a blog post written by Dan Romero, the company’s  vice president of operations. 

“We operate by the  principle that our customers should benefit to the greatest extent  possible from hard forks or other unexpected events,” Romero writes.  “This is essential in our mission to make Coinbase the most trusted,  safe, and easy-to-use digital currency exchange.”

Romero stated that Coinbase will provide customers with access to  coins on both blockchains, although they may restrict access following  the fork until both blockchains are stable and secure. “We are currently  working on the engineering and security requirements for each bitcoin  blockchain ,” the post continues. Although not directly referenced, the post comes just one day after Bitcoin.org threatened to publicly denounce  companies that support SegWit2x and do not publicly commit to meet  certain demands. In particular, companies must agree to only use the  term “Bitcoin” and ticker symbol “BTC” to refer to the original  blockchain and may not do anything to “deprive users of their bitcoins”. 

 The Coinbase announcement appears to  meet the second condition since it promises that customers will have  “access to bitcoin on both blockchains” following the fork. However,  Romero says they will not release a detailed plan for how they will name  the two blockchains until closer to to the scheduled date for the fork. However, the announcement does not  appear to have appeased SegWit2x opponents. Cobra-Bitcoin, one of the  current domain owners of Bitcoin.org, wrote on Github  that the statement “isn’t really helpful” and that Coinbase must  “immediately clarify that they will continue to call the current Bitcoin  blockchain ‘Bitcoin’ with the ticker symbol ‘BTC’.” This would seem to  imply that the announcement is not sufficient to remove Coinbase from  the list of companies Bitcoin.org will publicly denounce. Blockstream CSO Samson Mow — another vociferous critic of SegWit2x — suggested on Twitter  that Coinbase’s position may violate the terms of the “BitLicense,” the  financial services license bitcoin firms must receive to operate within  New York state. Specifically, he pointed to language that prohibits  licensees from altering a product or service in such a way that it is  rendered “materially different” from its status when the license was  approved or raises potential safety concerns and operational concerns.