Roger Ver, CEO and co-founder of Bitcoin.com, vocally defended Coinbase with regard to recent allegations of suspected insider trading conducted by members of the exchange’s staff. Ver appeared on CNBC on Wednesday in an interview with Melissa Lee on the network’s show Fast Money. Addressing the ordeal surrounding the addition of Bitcoin Cash to Coinbase, Lee asked for his opinion regarding the situation. Ver responded that he believes crypto “insider trading is a non-crime.”
As Bitcoin Cash was being added to GDAX, the cryptocurrency exchange that is affiliated with Coinbase, the price of Bitcoin Cash on GDAX jumped to $9,500, while still being offered at roughly $3,100 across other exchanges. The price jump caused a halt in trading of the digital currency on the GDAX platform. To this point, Ver explained: “Let’s say a bunch of people had traded in advance, then the price wouldn’t have been so volatile, and the price would already much more closely reflect the price after the news became public.” He continued to say that he does not believe that this incident should be used in order to apply more regulation on Bitcoin exchanges, claiming that “they’re already being regulated pretty heavily.”
Coinbase Response
In response to the allegations of insider trading, Coinbase CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong highlighted the company’s policy regarding employee trading in a blog post. Mr. Armstrong appeared adamant in alleviating public concern over the matter. In reference to the discrepancy of Bitcoin Cash pricing, he explained: “Given the price increase in the hours leading up the announcement, we will be conducting an investigation into this matter. If we find evidence of any employee or contractor violating our policies — directly or indirectly — I will not hesitate to terminate the employee immediately and take appropriate legal action.”
Bitcoin vs. Bitcoin Cash
Particularly when compared to Bitcoin, Mr. Ver has been a proponent of Bitcoin Cash, describing it as “fast, it’s cheap to use, and reliable. And Bitcoin core and their development team have intentionally made Bitcoin core slow, expensive to use and unreliable. So if you have two versions of Bitcoin: one that’s fast, cheap to use and reliable and one that’s slow, expensive to use and unreliable, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out which one of those two versions of Bitcoin will be more usable. And it’s clearly Bitcoin Cash.” It is therefore not surprising that Bitcoin.com has taken steps to increase its accessibility by integrating Bitcoin Cash into all of the company’s wallets.
Bitcoin.com CTO Emil Oldenburg recently announced that he has sold all of his Bitcoin and has switched to acquiring Bitcoin Cash, as he sees it as a more attractive digital currency. His announcement goes hand in hand with Mr. Ver’s comments in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, in which he strongly supported Bitcoin Cash as a stronger investment alternative.
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