With the Bitcoin markets fixated on slowly making the switch to bigger blocksize, speculation has taken over the Bitcoin market prices. The number of outstanding transactions to be processed on the Bitcoin Network has been piling up due to the limit on the Blocksize of the Bitcoin network. With piling transactions, there has been a delay in the validation of the exchange. This has defeated the unique selling point of the cryptocurrency and the Bitcoin community has concentrated their efforts towards tackling the problem. Let’s dive deep into how proposed alternative for Bitcoin fork will be impacting the exchanges and how they plan to handle the ordeal of fork in the days to come:

Speeding up transactions:

The Bitcoin community has resolved to speed up the transaction by increasing the block size in which the transactions are produced and stored per every ten minutes. This would mean by proposed terms the blocksize would increase from 2 M.B to 8 M.B being able to process more transactions per 10 minutes and thereby delivering on the transaction speed. These bigger blocks would be on the blockchain labelled as Bitcoin Unlimited and already 11% of the nodes are running on Bitcoin Unlimited. But this would mean exchanges also have to shift to the agreed upon currency depending on the final decision.

Exchange’s plan:

According to the statement released by a group of 20 exchanges, their plan for tackling the hard forking would be to list Bitcoin Unlimited as a separate currency. Since the digital currency would be splitting up into two currencies, Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Unlimited would be the two blockchains on which the currency would be splitting up depending on the Block sizes. Bitcoin Unlimited would now be listed as an alternative cryptocurrency under the BTU or XBU tickers in the event of a network split.

The exchanges said:

“As exchanges, we have a responsibility to maintain orderly markets that trade continuously 24/7/365. It is incumbent upon us to support a coherent, orderly and industry-wide approach to preparing for and responding to a contentious hard fork. In the case of a bitcoin hard fork, we cannot suspend operations and wait for a winner to emerge.”

Why it becomes necessary:

The statement signed by Bitfinex, Bitstamp, BTCC, Bitso, Bitsquare, Bitonic, Bitbank, Coinfloor, Coincheck, itBit, QuadrigaCX, Bitt, Bittrex, Kraken, Ripio, ShapeShift, The Rock Trading and Zaif – the exchanges, clearly stated that the exchanges would be listing BU since the fork seems inevitable. The exchanges feel that with the advantages and integrity of the cryptocurrency being questioned, this would indeed be the right move to give the users of the company best service.