Coincheck to sell BSV holdings, pay users in Japanese yen

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Japan-based cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck has decided that it won’t support Bitcoin SV (BSV). The platform first made the announcement after the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hard fork last year, but is now moving forward with payouts of any BSV holdings. Those payouts will be made in Japanese yen.

According to a statement by the company, “Regarding the date and time of the planned event, there is a possibility that the [BSV] market price may be subject to manipulation, so we do not make a public date announcement.” It added that it will make a report on payments after they have been made.

The move by the exchange indicates that all users who held BSV in their Coincheck accounts at the time of the hard fork—November 16, 2018—will see those assets automatically converted to yen. Coincheck adds that users who held BCH in their “trading account” or “lending virtual currency account” will not see any conversion, and that the amount of yen delivered might be lower than the market price of the coin. Coincheck also expects to assess a fee for any yen withdrawals. 

The decision has already caused friction in the crypto community. “PaidSockPuppet” said on Reddit, “So, they’re either selling the BSV on the market and then giving the customers fiat, which means the exchange is deciding when and how to sell their customer’s property, or they are buying up their customer’s BSV with no chance for the customers to choose. Either way, it sounds like a pretty shitty deal for the customers. They should get to choose.”

On Twitter, “Mitsuki Yoshizawa” offered, “I feel that there is no credibility of Coincheck anywhere to dispose of human property.”

Coincheck hasn’t had what could be considered a solid history with the crypto community. It was hacked in January 2018, losing 523 million NEM tokens in the process. That made it the largest exchange hack at the time, even bigger than the Mt. Gox scandal. It also decided late last year to remove Dash, Zcash, Monero and Augur from the platform, even though these assets have remained popular. It also reported significant losses in the third quarter of last year and, despite receiving approval by Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) for an operating license, has still struggled to stabilize its operations. The decision to remove support for yet another digital asset won’t do much to improve the company’s image.

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