Kraken to force a 10% clearance fee on Bitcoin SV users

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Bitcoin SV (BSV) community has not been treated well by Kraken for months now. After delisting BSV as a trading option in April, the exchange has now informed customers that they’ll have to take a haircut and sell any remaining BSV in their account for a loss.

This news started hitting the internet on September 21, when Kraken informed customers that all remaining BSV in customer accounts will be sold off for BTC on December 5, with a 10% fee being taken by the exchange itself.

If you didn't move your #BSV off #kraken before the deadline they are going to liquidate all BSV in 180 days buy BTC and take a 10% fee. WTF? pic.twitter.com/dFaLVwgRm7

— NEIL FORD (@nford) September 22, 2019

This isn’t news that Kraken is celebrating necessarily, as they haven’t made any tweets about the decision or written about it in their blog; they’ve simply informed BSV users to keep things as quiet as they can.

But if you were a BSV holder, and weren’t caught up on Kraken’s actions, here’s the rundown. In April, Binance decided to delist BSV, not because there was anything wrong with the only faithful digital currency to the Bitcoin whitepaper, but because they couldn’t handle the truth that Dr. Craig Wright was spreading about the crypto world. Kraken followed suit shortly after.

But that wasn’t the first time they chose a side. When BSV was born from a fork in November 2018, they also chose sides, choosing to promote the alternative fork, for which they’ve since faced legal troubles.

The BSV community is understandably unhappy with this recent announcement. As withdrawals were shut down in May, they are being forced into an action that they otherwise might not want to make. Understandably then, they are seeing this as a corrupt money grab by the exchange.

“transparently convey this reality” = making 10% out of every BSV because you don’t like it’s CTO = least professional thing I’ve seen in a long time, no wonder nobody in the real world is taking crypto serious @krakenfx

— Chilli ˢᵛ (@5omni) September 22, 2019

This is unlike other actions taken by Kraken in the past. Their CEO previously commented on the case of QuadrigaCX, claiming their lack of professionalism and eventual calamity was a major factor in holding Bitcoin adoption back. For Bitcoin SV users, or holders of any digital asset, Kraken’s treatment of BSV may now leave them wondering if they’ll be next to take a 10% cut on their investment.