South Korean Bitcoin exchanges Coinone and Coinnest announce plans to fork

Two South Korean bitcoin exchanges, Coinone and Coinnest, have announced their policies regarding the upcoming bitcoin network hard fork, “Segwit2x,” scheduled for November, while bitcoin’s hard fork is scheduled for October 25.

Coinone's Policy

• Coinone, the second largest Bitcoin exchange in South Korea, announced its general policy on blockchain hard forks last week. Although the Segwit2x hard fork was mentioned in the statement, it was not a Bitcoin hard fork.

• According to data from Coinmarketcap, Coinone’s Bitcoin trading volume recently surpassed that of another major South Korean exchange, Korbit. The platform has surged in popularity since launching physical trading early last month. The exchange cited the possibility that “a new virtual currency will be derived from existing Bitcoins”:

Coinone will do its utmost to support the creation of a new virtual currency that is generated by a hard fork in a future blockchain and quickly support deposits and withdrawals. The exchange also noted that withdrawals may be suspended during the fork.

Coinnest’s Policy

• Meanwhile, two South Korean bitcoin exchanges announced hard forks; on Thursday, digital currency trading platform Coinnest announced that it would "fully support" Segwit2x and the hard fork of Bitcoin's blockchain.

• The exchange currently ranks fourth in Bitcoin trading volume in China, according to Coinhills. However, its volume is roughly one-third of Coinmarketcap’s, and less than a quarter of Coinone’s at the time of writing. Coinone CEO Kim Byeong-hwan said in a statement on Thursday:

  We completed the technical preparations for the hard fork during our first domestic exchange.

• The exchange detailed that users who hold Bitcoin on its platform "will automatically receive" the new cryptocurrency. "This Bitcoin hard fork will begin on October 24th and end on November 1st," the exchange wrote, adding that if there are no issues with the blockchain split, both cryptocurrencies will be available for deposits and withdrawals on November 1st. In addition, the exchange said, "we will be paying out BTG," referring to Bitcoin Gold.

• At the time of this writing, Bithumb, the country’s largest bitcoin exchange, and Coinmarketcap, the country’s third-largest, have not announced their policies on the two hard forks.

What do you think of the two Bitcoin exchanges’ plans?