Crypto Exchange Poloniex Announces 'Pre-Fork' Trading for Bitcoin Cash Split

Poloniex will be the first exchange to offer trading for the pending bitcoin cash hard fork amid the debate that has raged since mid-year.

Starting Wednesday night, Poloniex will be the first exchange to offer customers the bitcoin cash ABC and bitcoin cash SV trading tokens.

This is the first time Poloniex has offered pre-fork trading and it is part of a wider strategy to increase Poloniex's standing in the crypto-world, according to a blog post.

"We're doing this to empower customers to demonstrate their support for one coin over the other through trading activity. Poloniex will also support trading markets for both tokens after the hard fork."

The exchange has stressed its intention to remain neutral during the split in order to allow the community to decide which chain to support, demonstrated through trading activity.

It also stated that it would be evaluating each hard fork individually to decide whether to support the fork or continue pre-fork trading.

Pre-fork trading has been made available for USDC/BCHSV and USDC/BCHABC as well as bitcoin trading pairs.

Customers will also be able to convert their BCH into an equivalent amount of BCHABC and BCHSV and vice versa if they wish to withdraw funds, but will not be able to withdraw BCHABC and BCHSV ahead of the fork.

The exchange plans to continue supporting trading for both bitcoin cash ABC and SV after the planned fork on Nov. 15.

Bitcoin Cash is down 0.81 percent on the day and has fallen day-day after reaching a top of $638 on Wednesday afternoon.