UK’s oldest crypto exchange drops Ethereum – the reasons

Dukascopy Bank starts CFD on Ether trading operations

Coinfloor is UK’s oldest-running crypto exchange and it now plans to drop both Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash. The delisting of Ethereum is expected to happen next month. The primary reason cited is that the future of hard forks is quite unclear and there is a current need for burdensome technical support for the coin.

Coinfloor will also drop Bitcoin Cash, the coin that came to life after a heated debate over Bitcoin’s scaling future. From January 3 onwards, Coinfloor will only support Bitcoin.

The delisting of Ethereum comes ahead of the creation of Ethereum 2.0, which will shift the network from PoW mechanism to PoS one. The shift is expected to take place in early 2020.

What the decision of Coinfloor suggests is that the ability to maintain a team with the necessary expertise to handle Ethereum may be too expensive for smaller exchanges and smaller trading volumes. So, the exchange seems to be focusing more on Bitcoin right now instead of investing in a team and necessary “infrastructure” to support Ethereum.

The problem with the new platform and new mechanism of work is that the transition may take years to complete, and as long as this is the case, there can be two versions of Ethereum running on the market. It essentially means that maintaining the currency is only worth it if that maintenance translates in sufficient trading volume, which is not the case for Coinfloor with Ethereum.

The crypto exchange is also planning to delist Bitcoin Cash for the same reasons. The major plan of Coinfloor right now is to focus on Bitcoin and explore new developments in 2020 such as lending.

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