Exodus exchange ready for Quasar; Coinbase turns its back on its customers

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The long-anticipated Quasar update to the Bitcoin SV (BSV) blockchain will take place today and the BSV community is anxiously waiting for the results. The network’s block size will be increased to 2 gigabytes (GB), marking the first time any blockchain has achieved this level of capacity and BSV is the only blockchain that has been able to prove that massive scaling on-chain is possible. In preparation for the upgrade, miners and node operators have been notified that they need to upgrade their software and other crypto entities have to be prepared as well. It appears that, while some exchanges are taking the upgrade seriously, others are willing to shrug off their customer responsibilities and not make the necessary preparations.

According to the Bitcoin Association, “Many businesses and individuals run an instance of Bitcoin SV but are not involved in mining. For example, if you operate a wallet or an exchange that supports BSV, you are running an instance of the Bitcoin SV Node software. But unlike miners – who write to the blockchain – other operators of BSV instances are just ‘blockchain listeners.’”

The Exodus exchange announced Tuesday that it was going to temporarily halt BSV trading until after the Quasar update is complete. It said in a Twitter post, “In preparation for the Quasar upgrade, BSV exchanges will be temporarily unavailable beginning July 24th at 12:00 UTC for ~48 hours. Exodus will make the necessary updates and verify all is working well on our end.”

Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN), however, isn’t willing to give the upgrade a second thought. According to a tweet by Neil Ford, “Spread the news. Yet again @coinbase is trying to stop #BSV by not updating their node. They signaled with very little time. Not Everyone sits on twitter. I received no email. They must move before the network update. @CoinbaseSupport UPDATE YOUR NODE. BSV is not going away!”

Whether or not Coinbase likes BSV is irrelevant. It is doing a disservice to its customers, and possibly putting their funds at risk, by not taking the necessary precautions “just in case” something were to happen. Coinbase doesn’t allow trading in BSV, but users still have the ability to withdraw any BSV holdings. However, attempts to make withdrawals in the past day or so have reportedly been unsuccessful, with some Twitter users stating, “I have friends who are unable to send their BSV out as it says ‘Not available for send’” or that there is a “temporary pause on withdrawals.”

If this is how Coinbase treats its customers — even those that it doesn’t like, it doesn’t bode well for the company’s future.

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