On 1st of August, the Bitcoin blockchain had a split where a second chain was created. The second chain called Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a completely new cryptocurrency and doesn’t interfere with the original Bitcoin blockchain. This is similar to the split in the Ethereum network in 2016. If you had 1 bitcoin, besides 1 bitcoin you now also have 1 bitcoin cash (BCH).
Here are the most common questions answered regarding bitcoin kept in Paxful user’s wallets.
- Are my bitcoins safe in my Paxful wallet?
Since it’s already past the 1st of August when the split happened and no incidents occurred during that time we assure you that Paxful operates normally.
- Is Paxful going to support Bitcoin Cash (BCH)?
We are not ready to support you right now for multiple reasons. The first reason is that Paxful doesn’t have multicoin support yet and the way web wallets operate there is no possibility for us to credit BCH to our users.
The second reason is the short announcement period and without rigorous testing, we are not willing to risk people’s money. BitGo whom we are using to handle our bitcoin deposits and withdrawals has the same stance. Read more the BitGo blog.
- Will I receive Bitcoin Cash (BCH) eventually?
We are monitoring Bitcoin Cash closely and if it will still have any value once our architecture is ready for multicoin support, we have multiple ways to credit. The first option we will credit every user for the same amount of Bitcoin Cash as how much you had in your Paxful wallet at the time of the split. We will announce this at a certain time (i.e 1st of October). The second option is we will sell all Bitcoin Cash on a supporting exchange and divide it between users, proportionally to their bitcoin balances. Depending on our partners BitGo, once they start supporting Bitcoin Cash we would use their infrastructure to handle Bitcoin Cash withdrawals and deposits.
Paxful is evolving
In the past 3 years, bitcoin and the whole cryptocurrency space have evolved at the speed of light. Our initial idea of using bitcoin to pay at brick-and-mortar merchants (Easybitz) evolved into buying bitcoin instantly for as many payment methods as possible. Now we are about to release revolutionary Pay with Paxful. With other cryptocurrencies having unique properties that bitcoin doesn’t, our users have been asking for their support. We are currently building a universal digital wallet.
