Binance Opens Deposits, Withdrawals for Bitcoin Diamond (BCD)

Bitcoin Diamond (BCD) is about to have its Binance wallet opened for deposits and withdrawals. Binance participated in the hard fork by distributing BCD balances but did not allow new deposits or withdrawals.

https://twitter.com/binance/status/1037227275308003329

The lockdown on the wallet meant there was only limited availability of BCD for trading on Binance, based on Bitcoin (BTC) balances. The exchange holds 168,791 BTC in its hot wallet, supposedly allowing for the same number of BCD.

The news immediately affected the BCD market price, which stood at $1.33 at close on September 4. It began rising from around 06:30 UTC onward on September 5, reaching as high as $4.03 before retreating to $3.81. Trading volumes immediately shot up, rising from about $1.3 million to just under $70 million as of 12.30 UTC on Wednesday. The re-opening of the Binance wallet should now equalize prices for BCD across exchanges.

The restriction on new deposits created artificial scarcity, which led to a trading anomaly. BCD prices on Binance vary between $12.40 against BTC and $12.51 against ETH. Those prices are excluded from CoinMarketCap statistics. BCD trades on very slim volumes against ETH, at $87,794, and $745,775 against BTC.

BCD market prices peaked at $104.84 on November 25, 2017, when the asset traded on a niche exchange that allowed for speculative trading right after the fork. Since then, the value has shrunk, reaching daily lows of $1.04 on August 21 and 22.

The bulk of BCD trading is concentrated on Gate.IO, but here is also strong activity on OKEx. The coin has shown erratic price movements, often doubling in price before crashing.

The Bitcoin Diamond network is somewhat similar to Bitcoin Gold (BTG) in using GPU mining for a variation of the Bitcoin protocol. One of the reasons BCD was locked on Binance with no deposits or withdrawals was the instability of the network. A low hashrate network could have posed difficulties in moving funds. But there was also the possibility of a 51% attack, like the one that affected Bitcoin Gold.

So far, Bitcoin Diamond has not suffered a 51% attack. However, initial attempts to send coins to exchanges were held back by a slow network, taking a long time for multiple confirmations.

In the case of Bitcoin Diamond, there are no exact statistics about the network’s hashrate. It uses the X13 mining algorithm, for which there already are ASIC machines on sale, and in theory, a malicious miner could hijack the network.

Neither the author nor the publication assumes any responsibility or liability for any investments, profits, or losses made as a result of this information. Cryptocurrency trading and investing are risky propositions, and market participants are advised to always conduct thorough research.