EasyDNS Ditches Bitcoin Cash Payments in Favor of Litecoin
Any company accepting cryptocurrency payments is facing some tough decisions. Especially if the company in question deals with altcoin payments. The bearish market of 2018 and early 2019 creates a lot of dismay. However, there is also the recent Bitcoin Cash “fork” which forced EasyDNS to drop BCH as a payment method altogether.
EasyDNS Makes a Controversial Decision
Although it is always good to see companies and service providers embrace cryptocurrency payments, they usually don’t stick with their decision for long. Numerous companies have dropped Bitcoin support in recent years. Others have tried to experiment with altcoins, albeit with very little success in most cases. In the case of EasyDNS, some of their previous decisions have not panned out as well as originally assumed
More specifically, the company was one of the first to officially accept Bitcoin Cash. Albeit it is still a forked version of Bitcoin, the team felt accepting it was the right thing to do. After all, Bitcoin Cash was a consensus-based fork, which makes some sense to a certain degree. As such, dealing with both payment options seemed like a smart idea. Payment processors such as BitPay also maintain this dual-coin approach, for the time being.
However, it appears as if EasyDNS is no longer accepting Bitcoin Cash. This decision was made over a month ago, yet was only made public knowledge a few days ago. According to the blog post, the company was not too convinced whether they should work with either Bitcoin ABC or Bitcoin SV. Although ABC eventually regained the original BCH ticker, dealing with both versions of Bitcoin Cash was something EasyDNS simply didn’t want to experiment with whatsoever.
One could ask why they only took the decision at that time. Considering how the Bitcoin Cash protocol upgrade occurred well in advance, they could have potentially devised a strategy ahead of time. Even so, the final result is the exact same, as neither Bitcoin Cash nor Bitcoin SV will be accepted by EasyDNS now or in the foreseeable future. A bit of a “harsh” decision first and foremost, although one could also see where this decision is coming from.
It is important to note this particular development doesn’t mean EasyDNS is turning its back on cryptocurrencies. In fact, the company made the surprising decision to introduce another altcoin as a supported payment method. Replacing Bitcoin Cash will be Litecoin, the silver to Bitcoin’s gold and a currency which has successfully built up a strong reputation over the years. It also took 10 minutes for the EasyDNS engineers to incorporate LTC payments.
This is a pretty interesting development, for many different reasons. More specifically, EasyDNS is the first and only ICANN accredited registrar in the world to accept Litecoin payments. A big feather in the cap of the LTC community and a pretty big blow to the BCH holders. Even so, one has to wonder if Bitcoin Cash will be introduced as a payment method again in the near future. It seems unlikely at this point, yet one never knows what will come next.
by JP Buntinx via The Merkle Hash