Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
Alpari, a major international forex and binary options broker with significant presence in Russia, warned that the change in the Bitcoin blockchain on August 1 might split the cryptocurrency into two assets: Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin Limited.
Even though there is a general agreement against the splitting, it cannot be ruled out and this could bring high level of volatility on the market, low liquidity and increased risk, the broker notes. This is why from July 31 to August 4, Alpari reserves the right to make some changes to the trading conditions on the BTCUSD and BTCEUR currency pairs. Such changes may include increased margin requirements and spreads, and instruments may be limited to “Close Only” mode.
Alpari is the second forex broker offering cryptocurrency instruments that publicly announces measures to limit the risk around the eventual split of the Bitcoin on August 1. Last week Admiral Markets said it is temporarily cutting the leverage on the BTCUSD CFDs it offers to 1:3.
The Bitcoin hard fork has been set for August 1 and, according to latest reports, would not cause a split of the cryptocurrency itself. Instead, the protocol will be changed in order to cope better with the increased demand and transactions. Nevertheless, 13 major Japanese bitcoin exchanges said they would temporarily suspend their operations in order to avoid the chaos of an eventual splitting of the Bitcoin.
