On Tuesday, when Bitcoin Cash hit Coinbase, the popular user-friendly U.S.-based exchange, cryptocurrency’s reputation as the financial wild west was on full display.
While anyone following along was well aware that Coinbase planned to add Bitcoin Cash, the currency created in August’s Bitcoin hard fork, things still got weird immediately. After some suspicious pre-launch climbing, Bitcoin Cash’s Coinbase launch immediately saw prices soar to almost three times those listed on other)
That “significant volatility” led Coinbase to freeze transactions for its newest asset, creating plenty of confusion in the process. Just a few hours later, the company disclosed that the chaos had prompted an insider trading investigation, a surprising concession after some in the cryptocurrency world cried foul (to be fair, they are often crying foul).
While it’s not yet wholly clear what was going on, many digital currency enthusiasts have pointed to a Reddit thread from three days ago titled “ATTN: Bitcoin Cash added to Coinbase API (EXTREMELY BULLISH)” that claims to have spotted evidence of Bitcoin Cash’s addition on a Coinbase API key permissions screen.