- Newsfact #1 | Coinbase refuses to support Bitcoin Cash (published 28-07-2017)
- Newsfact #2 | Coinbase adds support for Bitcoin Cash on January 1st, 2018 (published 04-08-2017)
- Psychological explanation: Peer pressure effect
News fact #1
- On July 28th 2017, David Farmer from Coinbase posted the following on the official Coinbase blog:
"In the event of two separate blockchains after August 1, 2017 we will only support one version. We have no plans to support the Bitcoin Cash fork. We have made this decision because it is hard to predict how long the alternative version of bitcoin will survive and if Bitcoin Cash will have future market value."
https://blog.coinbase.com/update-for-customers-with-bitcoin-stored-on-coinbase-99e2d4790a53
News fact #2
- On August 4th 2017, David Farmer from Coinbase posted the following update on the Bitcoin Cash situation:
"In the case of bitcoin cash, we made clear to our customers that we did not feel we could safely support it on the day it was launched. For customers who wanted immediate access to their bitcoin cash, we advised them to withdraw their bitcoin from the Coinbase platform. Over the last several days, we’ve examined all of the relevant issues and have decided to work on adding support for bitcoin cash for Coinbase customers. We made this decision based on factors such as the security of the network, customer demand, trading volumes, and regulatory considerations. We are planning to have support for bitcoin cash by January 1, 2018, assuming no additional risks emerge during that time. Once supported, customers will be able to withdraw bitcoin cash. We’ll make a determination at a later date about adding trading support. In the meantime, customer bitcoin cash will remain safely stored on Coinbase."
https://blog.coinbase.com/update-for-customers-with-bitcoin-stored-on-coinbase-99e2d4790a53
Psychological explanation
- Definition of "peer pressure" from Wikipedia:
"Peer pressure (or social pressure) is the direct influence on people by peers, or an individual who gets encouraged to follow their peers by changing their attitudes, values, or behaviors to conform to those of the influencing group or individual. This type of pressure differs from general social pressure because it causes an individual to change in response to a feeling of being pressured or influenced from a peer or peer group. Social groups affected include both membership groups, in which individuals are "formally" members (such as political parties and trade unions), and cliques in which membership is not clearly defined. However, a person does not need to be a member or be seeking membership of a group to be affected by peer pressure."