Coinbase, the company whose proclaimed mission is \"to create an open financial system for the world,\" announced on December 19th that they would henceforth \"buy, sell, send and receive Bitcoin Cash.\" They state their belief that blockchain forks should be supported, and that customers should benefit from progressing technology.

When the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain fork took place in August of 2017, Coinbase initially refused to add Bitcash (BCH) to its exchange portfolio, although promising to so at some future date. The December 19th announcement therefore comes as a surprise Christmas bonus to those whose inaccessible forked assets were languishing in Coinbase digital wallets. Coinbase have now created new wallets for those users holding BTC when the fork occurred, which contain an equivalent amount of BCH.

BCH has since seen an almost 50% rise in trading volume, with current values approaching the $3,500 mark. BTC, conversely, has experienced a significant drop, following the weekend surge it experienced on the commencement of trading on the futures markets.

Some allegations have been made on Twitter that Coinbase has been party to insider trading – although the company blog post states categorically that Coinbase employees had been restricted from trading in BCH in the weeks before the announcement.