‘Skin in the game’: BitAsiaEx opens pre-fork trading ahead of BCH protocol upgrade

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Asia-facing cryptocurrency exchange BitAsiaEx is giving its users the opportunity to have their skin in the hash game ahead of the scheduled Bitcoin Cash (BCH) protocol upgrade on November 15.

On Monday, the Chinese crypto exchange officially opened the trading pairs for BCH mined with the Bitcoin SV (Satoshi Vision) implementation, as well as that mined via the Bitcoin ABC node. BitAsiaEx currently offers BCH (SV) or BCH (ABC) trading against BTC, CNY, and BCH; users can also convert 1 BCH to 1 BCH (SV) + 1 BCH (ABC) for trading.

🏆BCHSV and BCHABC Pre-Fork Trading on BitAsiaEx💥#BitasiaEx #BCH
BitAsiaEx Website: https://t.co/xo8tDYAAVD
BitAsiaEx QQ: 565607681
BitAsiaEx WeChat: BitAsiaEx
BitAsiaEx Telegram: https://t.co/l5tzb3Yklg
BitAsiaEx Weibo：@BitAsiaEx
BitAsiaEx Twitter：@BitAsiaEx pic.twitter.com/eFRbwXsNNp

— BitAsiaEx (@BitAsiaEx) November 12, 2018

Founded in early 2018, BitAsiaEx is a BCH-friendly crypto-to-fiat exchange targeting crypto users in Asia. It’s also the first crypto exchange in the world to adopt 0-confirmation BCH transactions with “no problem at all,” although BitAsiaEx has opted to suspend that feature ahead of the protocol upgrade.

In an interview with CoinGeek, BitAsiaEx CEO Jeff Tang explained that similar to the “miners choice” philosophy, the rest of the Bitcoin BCH ecosystem—including those that don’t have hash power—should also be given the opportunity to support the path they believe the cryptocurrency is headed.

“We all agree that protocol is Miner’s Choice—one CPU, one vote if there is any agreement. What about the others in the community who don’t have hash [but] want to participate in the competition?” Tang said. “I think using hard, solid money to support their own belief or choice is “real choice,” or serious choice, as it is the skin in the game. That’s the only way we can let everyone think carefully and take it seriously in the long run, rather than in short-term speculation.”

BitAsiaEx’s move followed in the footsteps of Poloniex, which announced last week that it would offer pre-fork trading based on the assumption that the protocol upgrade would end up in a hard fork and create two tokens. It’s worth noting, however, that nChain—the blockchain research and development firm behind Bitcoin SV—is not seeking to create a new Bitcoin variant with the full node implementation.

The goal of Bitcoin SV, designed specifically to support the Satoshi Vision of Bitcoin, is to give BCH miners another choice—one that competes with other existing BCH implementations like Bitcoin ABC, which is pushing for a canonical transaction ordering rule (CTOR) that is not only risky to implement, but is also unproven in providing its claimed benefits.

As it is right now, Bitcoin ABC has the first mover’s advantage with the majority of nodes. BitAsiaEx, however, stressed that it’s not about the number of nodes, but the amount of hash.

“As an exchange, we tested all nodes, and we will test our BCH deposit method internally during hash war,” Tang said, noting that the hash competition can be take place between a few days and a few months. “I personally hardly believe that could last more than three months.”

The BitAsiaEx executive added, “The longest chain here we refer to most of chain work since 1st August 2017. BCH name should be granted to the one which has the most of chain work, the exchange should only look at the chain work since BCH is Proof of Work (PoW)… We are excited to see so many token proposals in BCH and we believe that is the future.”

When it comes to winning tokenization solutions on the BCH network, BitAsiaEx doesn’t have to look any further. Tokenized, the winner of the CoinGeek’s £5 million challenge to put tokenization on the BCH chain, has just released its white paper for public preview. CoinGeek is keeping its tokenization contest open with a secondary award of £1 million available. For more details, visit CoinGeek.com’s contest page.

To learn more about the Tokenized solution, come to the CoinGeek Week Conference in London on November 28-30, with a special invitation-only event for Bitcoin BCH miners and representatives taking place on November 27. CoinGeek Week Conference is the must-attend event of the fall season, where you can discuss the implications of the world’s first Bitcoin Hash War fought according to Nakamoto Consensus with the most influential thought leaders in the industry. Tickets to the CoinGeek Week Conference are on sale now.