Bitcoin cash soars above $3,000 after Coinbase says it will offer trading of the cryptocurrency

Bitcoin cash, an offshoot of red-hot bitcoin, was soaring after Coinbase said it would enable trading of the cryptocurrency on its platform.
Bitcoin cash was trading at $3,338 a coin at 7:40 p.m. ET, according to Markets Insider data.

Bitcoin cash jumped by more than $600 after Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, announced Tuesday evening it would enable trading of the bitcoin offshoot.

The cryptocurrency, which was formed after a fork of the bitcoin network in August, was trading above $3,000 a coin for the first time at an all-time high of $3,338 at 7:40 p.m. ET, according to data from Markets Insider.

Bitcoin cash, a sort of clone of the original bitcoin built to scale faster by processing more transactions, was not supported by Coinbase when it went live on August 1. As such, users did not receive one bitcoin cash for every bitcoin they owned as users on some other wallets and exchanges did. Coinbase said Tuesday, however, that users who owned bitcoin at the time of the fork would receive their tokens.

"All customers who held a Bitcoin balance on Coinbase at the time of the fork will now see an equal balance of Bitcoin Cash available in their Coinbase account," the company said in a statement.

On Coinbase's GDAX exchange bitcoin cash was trading at a premium to the overall market, reaching as high as $9,500. Soon after trading of bitcoin cash was underway on Coinbase, it was disabled.

DRdDRIWW0AEmPn4

Bitcoin cash supporters claim the coin better reflects the vision of Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of the Bitcoin blockchain.

Roger Ver, one of the original bitcoin cash backers, tweeted Tuesday that bitcoin cash was the true bitcoin.

"The reason there is so much hostility from Bitcoin Core towards Bitcoin Cash is because Core knows they have stolen the name but are advocating a completely different system than what was originally described by Satoshi," Ver said on Twitter."Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin."

The bitcoin/bitcoin cash schism is one iteration of an ongoing battle within the bitcoin community over how to scale the red-hot coin.

Other bitcoin offshoots include bitcoin gold, bitcoin silver, and even super bitcoin.

As for bitcoin, it was trading down as much as 10% against the US dollar Tuesday evening, dropping nearly as low as $15,800 a coin. It was trading at $16,344 at last check.