Payments startup Circle suggested in an email to users today that, in order to avoid the potential negative consequences of a hard fork on the network, they may want to to sell their bitcoins.In an email late Monday, Circle – which dropped support for buying and selling bitcoin in December, but still offers wallet services – outlined its contingency plan ahead of a possible network split.According to Circle's missive (which accompanied a lengthy update to the its user agreement), its bitcoin services could be disrupted "for an extended period of time" should a fork take place.Services interrupted would include the ability for users to convert holdings from bitcoin to another available currency on the platform.Yet, Circle went on to advise users to move their bitcoins to other platforms – or consider selling them altogether."The only way to avoid the potential negative consequences of a bitcoin fork is to not hold bitcoin.Just go to Settings > Currency and convert your balance to dollars, pounds or euro (availability is based on where you live).

You'll then be able to hold those funds with Circle or cash out instantly."According to the language added to the user agreement, Circle indicated that the disruption of its bitcoin services could happen within a short span of time and "until Circle has determined in its sole discretion that such functionality can be restored"."This bitcoin downtime will likely occur immediately upon a 'fork' of bitcoin with little to no warning, and during this period of bitcoin downtime you will not have access to bitcoin that you hold in your Circle account," the startup wrote.The comments are the latest the find representatives from the technology's business community weighing in on bitcoin's scaling debate, a years-long dispute over the network's future that has escalated in recent days.Miners and developers are now showing a determination to back separate roadmaps for the technology, adding to widespread perception two competing bitcoin blockchains (and bitcoin tokens) could soon become available on the market.

Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Circle.The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies.bitcoin profit calculator indiaHave breaking news or a story tip to send to our journalists?bitcoin exchange boss deadContact us at [email protected]/* bitcoin wallet linux*/!function(t,e,r,n,c,a,p){try{t=document.currentScript||function(){for(t=document.getElementsByTagName('script'),e=t.length;e--;)if(t[e].getAttribute('data-cfhash'))return t[e]}();if(t&&(c=t.previousSibling)){p=t.parentNode;if(a=c.getAttribute('data-cfemail')){for(e='',r='0x'+a.substr(0,2)|0,n=2;a.length-n;n+=2)e+='%'+('0'+('0x'+a.substr(n,2)^r).toString(16)).slice(-2);p.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(decodeURIComponent(e)),c)}p.removeChild(t)}}catch(u){}}()/* ]]> */.bitcoin plus service unavailable

Just under $2 billion has been wiped off the value of bitcoin in under three days as a fight over the future of the technology underpinning the cryptocurrency wages on.Bitcoin was trading at around $1,142.60 at time of publication, giving it a market cap of $18.53 billion, according to CoinDesk data.bitcoin regulation hong kongThis is down from highs of $1,255.32 on Tuesday, which valued the total bitcoin pile at $20.36 billion.bitcoin hong kong agreementThe market captilization shot from $2.68 billion to $4.95 billion.litecoin coming to coinbaseIt is the only other cryptocurrency to be valued at over $1 billion.diy bitcoin walletMuch of the inverse price movement stems from traders' worries over the future of bitcoin and the underpinning blockchain technology.bitcoin kazanma 2017

To understand the issue, it's key to look at how bitcoin transactions are processed.Transactions by users are gathered into "blocks" which is turned into a complex math solution.So-called miners, using high-powered computers work these solutions out to determine if the transaction is possible.Once other miners also check the puzzle is correct, the transactions are approved and the miners are rewarded in bitcoin.But there's a massive backlog of transactions in bitcoin that are waiting to happen.The number of outstanding transactions is up more than four times from just six months ago, according to data from bitcoin wallet Blockchain.This is bad for a system that has promised fast and cheaper transactions than the traditional financial system.Because of this, a group called Bitcoin Unlimited has emerged.This faction is suggesting increasing the size of the block which would allow more transactions to be bunched together and processed.Major bitcoin industry players including Roger Ver have backed the plan.

But some developers in the community suggest that increasing the block size could be unsafe.What's this about a fork?The real concern is if Bitcoin Unlimited gains major support, it could have an impact on the underlying blockchain technology that supports bitcoin.Bitcoin Unlimited has about an 11 percent market share of all the "nodes" in existence.Nodes are the backbone of bitcoin's infrastructure and refer to those mining the transactions as well as those tracking the movement of bitcoin to make sure it is all working correctly.Nodes can run Blockchain Unlimited software which would signal their support for increasing the block size.If 50 percent of bitcoin miners adopted Bitcoin Unlimited, there would then be two major blockchains and a "fork" would be created made of Bitcoin Core, the current main software behind the infrastructure, and Bitcoin Unlimited.Both blockchains would continue to run as long as there are nodes running them.But there would then be essentially two different coins – Bitcoin and Bitcoin Unlimited.