A lot of people were quite surprised to see Coinbase enable Bitcoin Cash trading a few days ago. Indeed, it was a pretty intriguing decision, although the altcoin has cemented its place in the world of cryptocurrency. Unfortunately, it seems European users will have to wait a while longer before they can buy BCH with their euros. According to Coinbase, that’s because European markets are “not sufficiently healthy.” It’s an interesting decision, to say the least.
No EUR/BCH Market for Coinbase
On one hand, it is good to see Coinbase make this smart decision well ahead of time. After all, it can’t afford to launch illiquid markets, especially not when they only just added another major trading market. Supporting Bitcoin Cash has been a smart decision, to say the least. Plenty of cryptocurrency enthusiasts had assumed this decision would be made at some point, although no one assumed it would happen this year. Then again, a lot of interesting decisions have been made by cryptocurrency exchanges throughout all of 2017.
For Coinbase, the decision to add Bitcoin Cash was not an easy one. Its goal is now to enable fiat currency trading pairs for BCH first and foremost. Before that can happen, the company will need to evaluate whether these markets possess sufficient liquidity. In the US, that was far less of an issue, as traders were more than willing to spend a lot of money on Bitcoin Cash when the new trading pair was added. The same cannot be said for the EUR market, unfortunately, but that isn’t really surprising either.
The Coinbase team has acknowledged the European markets are not sufficiently healthy to enable Bitcoin Cash trading right now. This means it is possible to buy BCH with US dollars, but not with euros at this point in time. It is a bit unclear why the European markets are not sufficiently healthy, even though we all know Europe is a very small player when it comes to cryptocurrency in general. For some reason, neither Bitcoin nor altcoins are very popular in this part of the world right now.
This doesn’t mean Europeans won’t be able to trade Bitcoin Cash against the euro in the future, though, as Coinbase still plans to enable this market as early as January of 2018. No specific date was announced at this time, but we should find out more in the next few weeks. It’s good to see Coinbase remain committed to enabling Bitcoin Cash trading for Europeans in the future. We can only hope this market gets added sooner rather than later.
Furthermore, Coinbase will continue to evaluate other “qualifying countries” in regards to support for Bitcoin Cash. It is obvious that demand for this particular altcoin has never been greater, and people are more than willing to spend fiat currency to obtain BCH. Moreover, Coinbase is still contemplating adding support for other cryptocurrencies as well. There are quite a few coins which could use fiat currency support right now, and which coins will be added to Coinbase remains to be seen.
It is also important to note that Coinbase users may experience some big delays when it comes to sending wire deposits and receiving withdrawals. According to the website, these can take up to five business days, which is not acceptable. At the same time, the massive influx of new users looking to buy and sell cryptocurrencies at this crucial time will impact the platform’s service in one way or another. Centralized exchanges are still problematic in this regard, yet it will be very difficult to bypass issues like these in the future.
