Coinbase has no immediate plans to add Litecoin Cash (LCC)

A couple of weeks back the Litecoin (LTC) blockchain split in two to form the new Litecoin Cash (LCC) hard fork. But despite some requests from users, it appears that leading cryptocurrency exchange desk Coinbase has no immediate plans to add Litecoin Cash trading pairs on its platform – at least not for the time being.

“We’re always monitoring potential forks from a security/stability standpoint, core developer roadmaps and customers perspective.” a spokesperson for Coinbase told TNW. “Ultimately, we want to do what’s best for customers while still being secure and practical.”

While the company refrained from providing more details on its plans for the forked currency, it did not rule out the possibility it might get listed on the exchange desk, saying that it is actively “tracking” LCC’s progress.

To give you some background: Litecoin Cash aims to replace Litecoin’s Scrypt encryption protocol with SHA-256. The tweak will make it possible to leverage old Bitcoin mining hardware to mine LCC, according to the developers behind this undertaking.

The Litecoin Cash team has promised to distribute LCC to Litecoin holders in a 10 to one ratio. This meant that if you were holding 10 LTC, you would have been entitled to 100 LCC. Needless to say, users were finding it difficult to decline an opportunity to score some free tokens.

As pointed out by Inverse, the only way to claim LCC (assuming you store your LTC on Coinbase) was to move your funds to a private wallet like Litecoin Core or Jaxx. This way you will have access to your private keys – and thus to your LCC freebie.

The reason is that Coinbase has a strict policy against sharing private keys with users.

“Our hot wallet/cold storage is not setup in a way where we can release private keys,” Coinbase explained to TNW. “This is standard for exchanges.”

Indeed, Coinbase has clarified these terms on its support page, saying “it’s not feasible to provide the private keys to individual wallet addresses.” The company further notes that “[t]his not only ensures your security but it also allows us to reduce the cost of sending digital currency to another Coinbase account.”

Meanwhile, several less known exchanges have already opted to list LCC trading on their platforms. The list so far includes YoBit, CryptoBridge, SouthXchange, and Trade Satoshi.

Despite some interest from the cryptocurrency community, Litecoin creator Charlie Lee has come forward to dismiss the Cash hard fork and its founders a “scam.”
The statement is somewhat ironic, since Litecoin itself forked off from the Bitcoin blockchain. Still, his concerns are not entirely groundless.

Lee has rightfully warned that the Litecoin Cash developers completed a pre-mining session ahead of the hard fork, accounting for about one percent – or roughly 5.5 million LCC – from the entire supply. For context, LCC stands at $0.91 at the time of writing, according to Coin Market Cap.

Last December, Coinbase announced support for Bitcoin Cash – a popular hard fork of the main Bitcoin blockchain – after the currency surged up to crack the top five biggest cryptocurrencies by market share. However, the company took several months to green light this move.

But as Coinbase already made it clear: the decision will ultimately come down to how the larger crypto-community fares in on Litecoin Cash. It remains unclear if users that held LTC when the hard fork took place will receive any LCC, if this happens.

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