Kraken Adds Ethereum Classic, Coinbase Slammed for Funds Freeze

Kraken has announced its acceptance of Ethereum Classic (ETC) tokens following Ethereum’s successful hard fork last week.

Also read: David Seaman: Ethereum Classic ‘Little More Than Troll Vaporware’

Kraken ‘Elects to Support’ Classic

In a statement released today, the exchange said it “elected to support classic ether along with most of the major Ethereum exchanges.”

Kraken will offer ETC/XBT, ETC/ETH,ETC/USD and ETC/EUR pairs.

The move comes as the price of ETC, the token of the chain, which does not recredit investors from the DAO hack that caused the hard fork, has been gaining huge support within a short timeframe.

Frantic trading on exchanges such as Poloniex saw the token’s value soar by over 250% in just 2 hours. Volatility was and remains considerable.

Nonetheless, popular sentiment Tuesday was that ETC’s support by major exchanges would both further value increases and reduce volatility, with users including Bitcoin.com’s own JP Buntinx welcoming Kraken’s decision:

Thanks to @krakenfx for properly adding #ETC trading to avoid replay attacks.

— Jean-Pierre Buntinx (@jdebunt) July 27, 2016

However, risks of the much-talked about replay attacks still abound, with Kraken giving special mention to users and highlighting the need for traders to “understand the risk of the replay attack and take appropriate steps to protect [themselves].”

Coinbase Accusations Continue

In the wake of Ethereum’s hard fork, Coinbase meanwhile is facing accusations of manipulation following its freezing of customer funds in both Ether (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC).

Multiple users have taken to Reddit to voice frustration at being unable to trade ETC funds once these had been purchased on its GDAX exchange. Some have even accused the exchange of outright theft.

“Coinbase does intend to let people withdraw their $ETC,” user r/cointastical wrote, “…But only ‘AFTER THE COMING WEEKS…’”

The user pointed to an update released for Coinbase users:

Update for @GDAX customers about the #Ethereum hard fork pic.twitter.com/Mh7tsBM4YX

— GDAX (@GDAX) July 27, 2016

It was added that there are “no plans to support ETC trading on GDAX” despite the service “not philosophically opposed to any hard fork or coin.”

Community users continue to draw comparisons between GDAX and other exchanges such as Poloniex and Bitfinex.

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin meanwhile released a blog post Tuesday advising users how to proceed following the fork.

“The foundation has committed to support the community consensus on the admittedly difficult hard fork decision,” he wrote.

“Seeing the results of various metrics, including carbonvote, dapp and ecosystem infrastructure adoption, this means that we will focus our resources and attention on the chain which is now called ETH (ie. the fork chain).”

Responses included a popular idea for the Ethereum Foundation to sell all its ETC reserves in order to state support for the competing ETH chain.

What do you think about the response to the hard fork and the growth of ETC? Let us know in the comments section below!

Images courtesy of Twitter, etsy.com 

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