Japan’s Biggest Bitcoin Exchange Reveal Bitcoin Gold Hard Fork Plans

Two of Japan’s leading bitcoin exchange have announced their plans for the upcoming bitcoin hard fork, scheduled to occur this week.

Tokyo-based bitFlyer, Japan’s largest and best-funded bitcoin exchange, has revealed its intention to distribute Bitcoin Gold (BTG) to users prior to the split of the bitcoin blockchain – expected to occur on October 25th. The exchange also revealed its intention to launch trading services in support of the new cryptocurrency, enabling users to sell, deposit and send BTG from their bitFlyer accounts.

A new altcoin that will emerge from a hard fork of the Bitcoin blockchain, Bitcoin Gold is led by Jack Liao of Hong Kong-based mining firm LightningASIC with the aim of improving the protocol. The new cryptocurrency is expected to form after the hard fork split on block 491,407.
BTG withdrawals and deposits will be enabled by the exchange “after sufficient observation of the stability in the BTG chain after the split”, bitFlyer added.

Coincheck, another major Japanese exchange, also announced it is ‘planning to provide Bitcoin Gold’ in the event of a chain split.

In a public notice last week, the exchange revealed it hadn’t determined a specific date and time for distributing the new cryptocurrency, contingent on determining if the new token has sufficient replay attack protection, a stable miner hashpower and adequate protection from vulnerabilities. Still, the exchange added it may not provide Bitcoin Gold if “we decide listing of Bitcoin Gold is inappropriate.”