Viabtc Launching Bitcoin Cash Token and Mining Pool for Bitcoin ABC

Major mining pool and bitcoin exchange Viabtc has announced the launch of their new mining pool designed for “Bitcoin Cash” (BCC). These tokens are the result of plans to hard fork Bitcoin and run the Bitcoin ABC client.

Also read: Segwit2x Beta Released and New UAHF Code Proposal `ABC´ Removes 1MB-Limit

Viabtc Introduces the Bitcoin Cash Token

Cryptocurrency mining pool and exchange platform Viabtc published their statement concerning the possible upcoming Bitcoin User Activated Hard Fork (UAHF) on Monday, stating:

We decide to make precautions for the upcoming UAHF and provide a new option for users, on the basis of our support of Segwit2x under New York Agreement. We will designate the token “Bitcoin Cash” (BCC) to the possible split coin led by the activation of UAHF.

Viabtc is the world’s 8th largest mining pool with ~5% of total hashrate currently. The Shenzhen-based company also offers cloud mining and has its own cryptocurrency exchange which trades bitcoin, ether, litecoin, and zcash. The exchange was launched after the company closed a 20 million CNY Series A funding round in March led by Bitmain, operator of the world’s largest bitcoin mining pool Antpool.

The Bitcoin ABC Client

Monday’s statement was in response to inquiries from miners and users about the company’s support for the proposed hard fork client called Bitcoin ABC (Adjustable Blocksize Cap), Viabtc detailed. This new version of Bitcoin was unveiled at The Future of Bitcoin Conference 2017 by developer Amaury Séchet. It has an 8mb block size default, but does not include the upgrade for Segregated Witness (Segwit), according to its code on Github. Instead, it makes a change in the way block sizes are adjusted through a voting process among miners.

The ABC specification falls in line with mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain’s hard fork protection plan against a User Activated Soft Fork (UASF), but Bitmain has not officially endorsed the ABC project.

CEO Jihan Wu has agreed to support the Segwit2x plan with his hashing power, as stated on his blog. “We support the agreement and we want to make it happen as soon as possible.” The company then tweeted on Monday, “all our #bitcoin mining pools will start running the new #Segwit2x software today.”

However, the BIP 148 soft fork will commence on August 1, followed by the UAHF plan which will activate at 12:20 UTC time on August 1, according to Viabtc’s announcement.

Bitcoin Cash Mining Pool Launching

Viabtc is also launching a BCC mining pool, the company also announced in Monday’s statement:

On 22nd July 2017, we will be launching a brand new BCC mining pool and lock the activation time of UAHF at 12:20 1st August 2017 (UTC Time).

Miners who want to mine on the new BCC blockchain can begin mining in the new pool on July 22. However, until UAHF activates on August 1, they can only mine bitcoins since the fork has not taken place yet. Then on the 1st, the new pool will automatically switch from mining bitcoin to BCC, the statement explains.

The company’s cloud mining division is also offering BCC-mining contracts starting on July 22. At that time, current S9 cloud mining contract holders can trade their contracts at a 1:1 ratio for the new S9-BCC contracts.

Also starting on July 22, Viabtc’s customers can trade their bitcoins for two new assets on Viabtc’s exchange; the new BCC token and a temporary asset called Btc_Frozen2, which “represents frozen BTC assets and is not available for trading.” Neither of the new tokens will be available for withdrawal, according to the announcement.

To represent the coin split on the exchange, Viabtc wrote, “you can trade 1 BTC into 1 BCC token and 1 Btc_Frozen2 token, or vice versa.” After UAHF activates at 12:20 UTC time on August 1, all of the Btc_Frozen2 assets will be redeemed as bitcoins and the exchange “will decide on the best timing to allow deposit and withdrawal for BCC.”

What do you think of Viabtc’s plan? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Viabtc, Bitcoin ABC

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