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In an interview, OKCoin CEO defends its controversial trading suspension of BSV and BCH.
Craig Wright’s recent legal threats prompted the suspensions.
OKCoin CEO says BSV and BCH should stop "hiding behind" the Bitcoin brand.
San Francisco-based cryptoexchange OKCoin announced on Friday that it will suspend trading of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin SV (BSV)—two forks of Bitcoin (BTC)—starting March 1.
OKCoin CEO Hong Fang said the suspensions aim to stop the “malicious misinformation war” waged by self-titled Bitcoin creator Craig Wright, who spearheaded the development of BSV, and by others influential in the development and promotion of BSVand BCH.
“You cannot just let the bad guys roam out there and say nothing,” Fang told Decrypt, in apparent reference to Wright and others active in the the BSV and BCH projects whom she refused to name.
But OKCoin's move is also an effort to protect Bitcoin, she said.
Fang told Decrypt that BSV and BCH should stop “pumping the campaign of ‘Oh, [Bitcoin] is not a store of value,’” at a time when “the free money printing is getting a lot of attention and macroeconomic viewpoints are attracting more people into Bitcoin as a store of value.”
BSV and BCH, both of which claim to be the ‘real’ Bitcoin, confuse novice investors and chip away at its trillion-dollar reputation, Fang said.
But people influential in the development and promotion of BSV and BCH, who spoke to Decrypt, question OKCoin’s motives in suspending trading of the coins.
Those involved with BSV and BCH told Decrypt they don’t find OKCoin’s reasons compelling.
Kurt Wuckert Jr., a writer on the pro-BSV website CoinGeek.com, told Decrypt, “Are they aware that Craig Wright and the BSV network are separate entities altogether? Craig being a human, and BSV being a distributed consensus network?”
The discussion also strikes at the heart of crypto's ongoing identity politics.
“There is no purity test to being a bitcoiner, and any discussion about the practical shunning of someone because they may be unsavory is a dangerous discussion,” he said. “[OKCoin’s] comfort with cancel culture is disheartening.
But a decision was made, and OKCoin has no intention of reversing it—inaction could have been construed as an endorsement of the projects, Fang said.
“There's collateral damage, but I think we're just opting for the lesser evil and really stand up for the fundamental principles of Bitcoin,” she said.
And Fang revealed that there was another factor in the timing of the news.
OKCoin was ready to announce the news much earlier, just before Robinhood made the controversial decision to halt GameStop buying. “And when that came up, we were like, well... maybe we don't want to be that type of censorship platform."
Fang told Decrypt that she wasn’t aware of the 2015 Bitcoin.com spat at all. “Honestly, If we had recorded our internal committee discussions and various follow up on this topic, you would see there's zero, like literally zero discussion of that.”
Will McCormick, a spokesperson for OKCoin, later clarified to Decrypt that Fang isn’t aware of the Bitcoin.com dispute because she didn't join until 2018 (as an investor, then she became CEO in 2019), so that was "before her time.” McCormick didn’t know about it, either.
“I can’t help but think [that’s the reason],” Kelso said. “Certainly, no love lost there. My guess is that it’s exactly why they decided to list BSV in the first place—to swipe at Ver.”
The 'lesser evil'
Fang also frames OKCoin's suspension decision in moral terms.
“I think the healthiness of the community is reflected in whether people actually stand up against someone who does something wrong, regardless of who that person is," she said.
OKCoin regularly reviews the assets it lists, and considers “objective metrics,” Fang said, such as market performance, liquidity, network traffic and developer activity. But it also looks at“soft signals,”such as reputational issues. This is a “much more subtle balancing act,” she said. “ There's always internal debate on where the line lies.”
When the debate to suspend trading of the coins first sprang up inside OKCoin last month, many OKCoin employees, Fang acknowledges, felt that “an exchange shouldn’t be the judge.”
Fang said several colleagues reached out to her, arguing in favor of free markets. Instead of removing the coins from the platform, they argued, the company should just alert customers that BSV, BCH, and BTC are all different