We’re thrilled to announce that, as of today, we have enabled Bitcoin SV (BSV) trading on SFOX. Note that this feature is currently in beta: we will be monitoring its performance and will launch it in full force once we are confident that it meets the standards of our trading systems for BTC, ETH, BCH, LTC, and ETC.
That means you can now get the best prices and execution on your biggest BSV trades by using our eight proprietary algorithms to trade across leading crypto exchanges, all from a single account.
Bitcoin SV is currently the #9 cryptocurrency by market cap, valued collectively at just under $1.6 billion. BSV is the sixth cryptoasset we’ve enabled on SFOX in keeping with our mission to provide institution-grade liquidity and open access to the crypto asset class.
Note: If you had Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in your SFOX account during the time of our pre-fork snapshot (4:40:00 PM UTC on November 15th), you should also now have the corresponding amount of BSV available for trading and/or withdrawal.
Why Bitcoin SV?
Bitcoin SV is an offshoot of the Bitcoin Cash fork that took place on November 15th, 2018. Since Bitcoin Cash was itself an offshoot of a fork from Bitcoin on August 1st, 2017, BSV is something like a distant but direct descendant of that original cryptocurrency which still controls half of the overall crypto market cap.
The two main proponents of Bitcoin SV were nChain, led by Australian computer scientist Craig Wright, and CoinGeek, led by entrepreneur / online-gambling mogul Calvin Ayre. They led the way in claiming that, like Bitcoin before it, Bitcoin Cash had strayed from the original vision of a digital currency outlined in the Satoshi Nakamoto whitepaper. To that end, the provocatively named “Bitcoin Satoshi Vision” forked from Bitcoin Cash in order to roll back many of the changes Bitcoin Cash had made to the protocol and focus exclusively on larger block sizes as their strategy of scaling the blockchain.
The November 2018 Bitcoin Cash hard fork distinguished itself as one of the most contentious to date: for about a week and a half following the fork, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV were engaged in a “hash war,” effectively trying to win all of the hash power for which they were both competing and neutralizing the other network. A few quotes capture the spirit of the post-fork environment in both the Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV camps:
- Calvin Ayre, owner of CoinGeek, wrote on November 20th that CoinGeek intends to “continue voting with our sustained hash power until the rented hash [i.e. BCH’s hash] is gone.”
- Craig Wright said that BCH would only “survive” if it updated to a new proof-of-work algorithm: “They have anything to do with SHA256d…. we come in wave after wave […] Only stopping when they are no more.”
- Jihan Wu of Bitmain, leading supporter of Bitcoin Cash, publicly speculated about when he would be able to dump his ~1 million BSV onto the market, which would presumably tank BSV’s price.
This animosity and lack of replay protection between Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV led SFOX and others to suspend support of Bitcoin Cash for the time immediately following the fork — until the Bitcoin SV camp announced on November 26th that it would be supporting a permanent split from Bitcoin Cash via replay protection between the chains. At that point, we fully re-enabled Bitcoin Cash trading on our platform, while withholding judgment on Bitcoin SV until it was clearer if there was market support for it.
At this point, it’s clear to us that there is indeed a market for the BSV/BTC pair, which is why we’re happy to announce that we’ll be providing that market with institution-grade liquidity by enabling it on our trading platform.
How to Trade Bitcoin SV
To start trading Bitcoin SV now, just log in to your SFOX account and select the “BSV/BTC” pair from our integrated order book that connects you to multiple leading BSV liquidity providers.
Once you’ve selected the BSV/BTC pair, choose from one of our 8 battle-tested trading algorithms to get the best execution on your largest trades.
The above references an opinion and is for informational purposes only. It is not intended as and does not constitute investment advice, and is not an offer to buy or sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any cryptocurrency, security, product, service or investment. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice. The information provided here or in any communication containing a link to this site is not intended for distribution to, or use by, any person or entity in any jurisdiction or country where such distribution or use would be contrary to law or regulation or which would subject SFOX, Inc. or its affiliates to any registration requirement within such jurisdiction or country. Neither the information, nor any opinion contained in this site constitutes a solicitation or offer by SFOX, Inc. or its affiliates to buy or sell any cryptocurrencies, securities, futures, options or other financial instruments or provide any investment advice or service.
