Bittrex Moves to Delist Bitcoin Gold, the Coin Moves Up

One of the most popular hard forks of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Gold, is now facing removal from cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex. This removal follows a series of heists that netted thieves over USD 20 million in stolen funds in May this year. However, this turn of events did not bring the price down: it has even gained less than 1% within the past 24 hours.

Bitcoin gold price chart:

Back in May, Bitcoin Gold was hijacked with rented computing power. After hackers took control of more than 51% of the overall hash power (the processing power of the network), more than 388,000 BTG (around USD 18 million at the time) was stolen from cryptocurrency exchanges like Bittrex. Although there is no information how much was stolen from Bittrex, Bitcoin Gold says they asked for a compensation of over 12,000 BTG (USD 255,000).

Bittrex announced they were removing BTG from their exchange by September 14. Bitcoin Gold responded with a statement, telling their own side of the story: “Bittrex informed us that they make this decision because the BTG team would not “take responsibility for our chain,” and that taking responsibility meant paying Bittrex 12,372 BTG to cover the loss they incurred. They later informed us they would cover part of the loss from their own BTG reserves and requested we pay the remaining ~6,000 BTG (USD 127,000), and that if we did not, we would be delisted.”

Bitcoin Gold, in various pairings, makes up around USD 300,000 of the 24-hour trading volume at Bittrex, out of a total of USD 48 million. The news of delisting did not deter people owning BTG, given that its price barely fell and its 24-hour trading volume was more than USD 9 million.