[zby]

I cannot find it on-line - but I have received a following message from Coinbase (<[e-mail]>):

""" Dear Coinbase Customer,

The User Activated Hard Fork (UAHF) is a proposal to increase the Bitcoin block size scheduled to activate on August 1. The UAHF is incompatible with the current Bitcoin ruleset and will create a separate blockchain. Should UAHF activate on August 1, Coinbase will not support the new blockchain or its associated coin.

The User Activated Soft Fork (UASF) is a proposal to adopt Segregated Witness on the Bitcoin blockchain and could result in network instability. It is scheduled to activate at the same time as the UAHF.

To ensure the safety of customers’ funds, we will temporarily suspend bitcoin deposits, withdrawals, and buy/sell starting approximately 4 hours before activation of either fork.

If you currently have bitcoin in your Coinbase account, and do not wish to have access to UAHF coins or have immediate access to your bitcoin, you are not required to take any action.

If you wish to have access to UAHF coins or you wish to have immediate access to your bitcoin, you should send your bitcoin from Coinbase to your external address by July 31.

For more information on how to send bitcoin from your Coinbase account, please refer to this article: https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/971437.

Thank you,

Coinbase Team """

This is very worrying. If a split happens each bitcoin will exist on two forked chains, that is it will become two coins - both will have some value (even if minimal). And now Coinbase announces that it will let users withdraw only one of them. What will they do with the other? Sell it somewhere?

Maybe the email is fake?

Update: Looks like on their blog they changed the message:

""" Customers who wish to access both blockchains at the time of the hard fork should withdraw their BTC from Coinbase since we cannot guarantee what will happen during the hard fork or when this access may be available. """ https://blog.coinbase.com/update-for-customers-with-bitcoin-... that sounds a lot saner.

[apeace]

That's odd. Coinbase was part of the New York Agreement[0], which are the group supporting the UAHF.

Both this email and the blog post make it sound as if Coinbase support the Core side, i.e. the UASF.

Can someone explain what I'm missing?

[0] https://medium.com/@DCGco/bitcoin-scaling-agreement-at-conse...

[makomk]

If I recall correctly, the New York Agreement is Segwit2x. UAHF is something else with little support.

[avaer]

Seems the implication is that if UAHF forks Coinbase (potentially) owns your UAHF coin. I wonder if and how the legal waters of this will be tested.