Bitcoin Cash, which was created through a hard fork of Bitcoin (BTC) chain on 1 August 2017, got divided into two chains —Bitcoin ABC (backed By Bitmain and Bitcoin.com) and Bitcoin SV (led by Dr. Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre)—as an outcome of a controversial hard fork in mid-November.
Notably, all cryptocurrency exchanges that backed Bitcoin Cash prior to November 15 are presently supporting the ABC variant. Some cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance, Kraken, Poloniex, OKEx and Bittrex are backing both the variants (ABC and SV), while a few of the exchanges (Coinbase, Bitstamp) have decided to stay away from supporting Bitcoin SV.
In addition to the aforementioned issues, there is also the ticker confusion. The cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets do not use a common ticker for ABC and SV. While the ABC variant is represented by ticker BCHABC, BAB, or BCH, the SV variant is indicated by BCHSV or BSV.
In a blog post on Friday, Eric Winer, Gemini’s Vice President of Engineering, clarified that Gemini will only provide support only for the ABC variant and will call the crypto as “Bitcoin Cash”. The exchange lists the crypto under the ticker “BCH”.
Winer also detailed that Gemini has “added replay protection to all BCH withdrawals from the Gemini platform to ensure transactions are only valid on the Bitcoin ABC blockchain.”
Regarding the SV variant, Winer explained that Gemini will be “continuing to evaluate Bitcoin SV over the coming weeks or months and we may or may not choose to support withdrawals and/or trading of Bitcoin SV in the future.”
Gemini exchange revealed that it will begin accepting BCH deposits from 09:30 ET (14:30 UTC) on Saturday, December 8th and trading will be allowed from Monday, December 10th, at 13:00 ET (18:00 UTC).
With this listing, the number of cryptos supported by Gemini rises to five. They are Bitcoin (ABC), Ether (ETH), Zcash (ZEC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC). The exchange will also offer the following trading pairs related to Bitcoin Cash: BCH-USD, BCH-BTC, BCH-ETH, LTC-BCH and ZEC-BCH.
Gemini also conveyed that it has “worked closely with the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS) to obtain approval to offer Bitcoin Cash trading and custody services.”