Coinbase, a leading bitcoin wallet and exchange company based in San Francisco, has announced that it has started running Bitcoin Classic nodes. The announcement was made by CEO Brian Armstrong via a post on Twitter.

“Coinbase is now running Bitcoin Classic! Let's help Bitcoin scale. Please download and run your own copy”, the tweet read.

Bitcoin classic seeks to raise the block size to 2MB using a hard fork. The first release of Bitcoin Classic version 0.11.2 was recently issued. It is based on Core version 0.11.2, and is compatible with its blockchain files and wallet. According to latest statistics from Coin.Dance, node data site, Bitcoin Classic has 720 nodes running the software at press time.

In subsequent tweets, Armstrong clarified some key points. He said, “[R]unning classic does not take you off the longest valid chain. Your Bitcoin remains interoperable/safe”.

A Twitter user going by the name AxSys inquired whether Coinbase was switching over to Bitcoin Classic as the primary running node going forward, CryptoCoinsNews reported.

Armstrong tweeted, “We run many node types, including one that I originally wrote, good idea to clarify!”

A community of bitcoin businesses, exchanges, wallets, miners, and mining pools, going by the name ‘Bitcoin Roundtable’, recently released a letter saying that as contentious hard-fork carries additional risks and potentially may result in two incompatible blockchain versions, it would be extremely detrimental to the bitcoin ecosystem at present.

Armstrong responded to the letter saying, “There is no such thing as a “contentious” hard fork that has 75% agreement”.

“Economic incentives are strong to have everyone consolidate on one chain”.