Bitcoin Cash (BCH) gets delisted on 15 May 2018 — the day of the upgrade (hard fork) to 32MB maximum block size — by BL3P, the largest crypto exchange in the Netherlands.
The Netherlands is one of the most crypto friendly countries in the world. Crypto trading is not regulated by the Dutch financial authorities; in fact, around 2013-2014, when answering written questions from the Dutch parliament, the Dutch finance minister said that he “took the view that Bitcoin does not fall under the definition of (electronic) money within the meaning of the Financial Supervision Act” and that it could be viewed as an item of barter (or medium of exchange).
Later, in June 2014, in a civil case involving bitcoin, a Dutch court took its cue from the finance minister and confirmed that although not legal tender, Bitcoin was a medium of exchange, and that therefore it could be used as a form of payment in the Netherlands. This country is so crypto friendly that it even has a “Bitcoin City” (Arnhem) where most businesses accept Bitcoin as a form of payment.
However, on 10 May 2018, BL3P made a pretty unfriendly decision regarding BCH by announcing that it was going to remove BCH on May 15th, the day of the hard fork. It explained that since “there already was a planning for the removal of Bitcash the hardfork has become a reason and strict deadline for the removal of Bitcash from BL3P. As for why it had decided to delist BCH, BL3P said that it was because it had a “strict selection policy” when it came to altcoins and that since “bitcash” no longer met those requirements, it had to be removed.
In March 2018, both OKEx and KuCoin announced that they were delisting BCH. In the case of the Belize-based OKEx, it said that it was going to “close all the trading pairs in BCH market of Token Trading at 18:00 Mar 30, 2018” due to “inadequate liquidity.” As for KuCoin, it just said that it was making some changes “based on user feedback.”
