Bitcoin Cash rose about 70% to a historic high on Wednesday after the San Francisco-based bitcoin-exchange Coinbase announced that it would provide its customers with the opportunity to trade it.
Bitcoin Cash appeared on August 1 as a result of a hard fork in Bitcoin. The purpose of the hard fork was to provide faster processing of transactions at lower prices.
Initially, the Coinbase exchange stated that it would not support the altcoin, but Wednesday’s decision should not have been a surprise for those who are following the crypto-currency market.
Representatives of the exchange quickly changed their decision and on August 3 announced that they would start trading in the new cryptocurrency before January 1, 2018.
Bitcoin Cash has become the most popular alternative to the "parent" Bitcoin and is currently the third largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $58.3 billion.
A significant increase in the cost of Bitcoin Cash on Wednesday was not possible without its dramatic nature when accusations arose that the exchange implements insider trading of BCH, followed by a sharp rise in the price of Bitcoin Cash just a few hours before the official announcement of the start of its trading on Coinbase.
The head of the exchange Coinbase made the following statement in the corporate blog: “If we find evidence that any employee or contractor is directly or indirectly violating our corporate policies, we will fire him immediately.”
At the same time, the Coinbase exchange tried to convince its customers via Twitter that the employees of the company were forbidden to trade Bitcoin Cash for several weeks.
“Coinbase maintains a strict trading policy and internal guidelines for employees. Coinbase employees have been prohibited from trading in Bitcoin Cash for several weeks,” says the tweet.
On Wednesday, BCH price jumped 74.35% or $1,599.20 to $3,750.00, closely approaching the historical high of $3,772.80 recorded on the same day.
At the same time, Bitcoin fell 9.27% or $1754.00 to $ 17,160.00. The decrease in the Bitcoin rate occurred despite the fact that on Sunday the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) launched trading Bitcoin futures.