In light of recent events surrounding Segwit2x and the Bitcoin Cash (BCC) hard fork event, several exchange and bitcoin companies have decided to take precautions by halting trades, deposits, and withdrawals to ensure that user funds remain safe.

BitPanda, a Vienna, Austria-based cryptocurrency exchange for the European market has joined the list and announced they will temporarily halt service to ensure that user balances remain safe at all times.

Read below for the details on BitPanda hard fork policies:

Company services will officially come to a temporary halt on Monday, July 31st, starting with all bitcoin deposits and withdrawals. Later, at midnight on August 1st, the buying and selling option of ALL other digital currencies will also be suspended.

It’s important to highlight, that except for bitcoin, BitPanda users will still be able to continually deposit and withdraw all other digital currencies via the platform.

If a user wishes to hold Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, they need to withdraw their BTC from BitPanda wallet’s before 01:00 pm CET July 31, 2017, as they won’t be supporting BCC. If a user is not interested in Bitcoin Cash, no further action is required.

What is the Bitcoin Cash (BCC) hard fork?

Bitmain, the largest mining pool, and manufacturer of mining equipment, previously announced, that if BIP 148, a user-activated soft fork (UASF), should be activated, they will separate the Bitcoin blockchain through a hard fork. This action would consequently create a whole new currency.

This new currency, Bitcoin Cash, would only be created if the BIP proposition saw the light of day, a prospect that was shut down by the activation of BIP91 (SegWit2x). However, ViaBTC, another major mining pool, and trading platform announced their regardless intentions to activate the hard fork. This means that Bitcoin Cash will probably become a reality on August 1st, and become its own currency, separate from the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin Cash is not a new or second Bitcoin, it will become just another altcoin in the industry.

BitPanda’s opinion towards BCC

Given the nature of the user-activated hard fork (UAHF), a blockchain split is bound to happen.

Same as other industry leaders, BitPanda does not support the contentious hard fork attempts and hence will not be crediting users with BCC coins according to their bitcoin balance. In the future, it may be possible, that the company will add BCC as a trading pair, although this is yet to be decided.