Coinbase has spent much of this week in the weeds over its decision not to accept the newly minted digital currency bitcoin cash. But the company could reverse that decision in the next few days, an investor told Business Insider.
"I think the company will be in a position to make an announcement in the next few days, and one could be supporting bitcoin cash in due course," said Barry Schuler, a partner with DFJ, an investor in Coinbase. "Currently, they're evaluating the activity — how the blockchain matures, if there's the appropriate level of mining activity. It's very important that there's liquidity."
Liquidity — the ability to convert an asset into cash — is an important factor for Coinbase because of its overall strategy to only trade currencies which are established and stable.
A spokesperson for Coinbase said that the company would "have an update on this later today," but it is unclear whether this will include a final decision or just more information on the company's decision-making process.
On Tuesday, however, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote that the company was agnostic to which currencies its users trade and that it was not opposed to adding new assets in the future.
"Our goal is to be the safest, most trusted and compliant, and easiest to use," Armstrong wrote on Twitter. "Not the first to market with new assets. Especially at scale, it takes time to ensure any new asset we add is well tested and secure."
Users were forewarned that they would need to move their bitcoin off of Coinbase if they wanted to use bitcoin cash, and many did, leading to reported wait times of 12 hours for some traders over the weekend.
Bitcoin cash started out with zero value when it was first established on Tuesday, but has quickly shot up to a high of $691.94 on Wednesday. As with many new digital currencies, it's still rather unstable, and currently sits around $397.
Read more about Coinbase and its initial decision not to accept bitcoin cash.
Check out Business Insider's picks for best cryptocurrency exchanges
Check out: Personal Finance Insider's review of Coinbase.
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