Coinbase has announced the addition of Bitcoin Cash support on its widely used Wallet app to enable users to receive the digital currency directly on the platform.
This move came only weeks after the San Francisco-headquartered exchange extended similar support for Bitcoin.
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“Coinbase Wallet already supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and over 100,000 different ERC20 tokens and ERC721 collectibles built on Ethereum. Adding support for Bitcoin Cash is an important next step in that direction,” the cryptocurrency exchange stated in the February 20 announcement.
Until now, Coinbase users were only able to store Bitcoin Cash on the exchange controlled wallets. The exchange believes that this move will give the Wallet app users better control over their funds as the users control the private keys.
As mentioned in the announcement, the crypto exchange will roll out support for both iOS and Android users over the next few weeks.
“BCH support is activated by default — all you need to do is tap ‘Receive’ on the main wallet tab and select Bitcoin Cash to send BCH to your Coinbase Wallet,” the exchange added.
Coinbase also assured that the wallet app would support “both newer CashAddr address formats, as well as Legacy addresses for backward compatibility in all applications.”
Security is the Challenge
The platform will encrypt the private keys using the industry standard using Secure Enclave technology. Moreover, it will also support the Bitcoin Cash Testnet to aid developers, and power users and the team is also planning “to add support for the JSON Payment Protocol in the future.”
Recently, the California-based exchange has added a cloud backup feature on its Wallet app so that its users can create a backup of the private keys on iCloud and Google Drive.
Targeting the Global Market
Coinbase is the dominating cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, and now the exchange is aiming to expand its operations overseas. As reported by Finance Magnates in October, the UK subsidiary of the exchange has reported yearly revenue of $147 million for 2017 alone.
This number also helped the firm to raise $300 million in funding later that month which bumped the valuation of the company to $8 billion – five times higher than a year-old valuation.
Moreover, to boost the security features of the trading platform, the exchange recently acquired Milan-based blockchain analytics firm Neutrino.