Japan’s Cryptocurrency Business Association (JCBA) has announced that 13 digital currency exchanges operating in the country will temporarily suspend deposit and withdrawal of bitcoins due to the upcoming Bitcoin User Activated Soft Fork (UASF).

To be activated on 01 August 2017, the UASF seeks to address scaling issues currently being faced by the Bitcoin network by accelerating the adoption of Segregated Witness. Cryptocurrency exchanges GDAX and OKEx have already issued statement details the measures which they would take in the event of the fork.

According to the JCBA’s official statement, bitbank, Bitpoint, Quoine, Fisco, Coincheck, BTCBox, Tech Bureau, GMO-Z.com Coin Co. Ltd., Campfire Corporation, Bit Trade Co. Ltd., Bitcrements Bitcoin Exchange, Tokyo Bitcoin Co. Ltd., and Minnano Bitcoin, are going to suspend bitcoin deposits and withdrawals on August 1 at 00:00 Japan time, Bitcoin.com reported.

“The first priority item as virtual currency exchange industry is protection of customer assets. We examined several ways to deal with this technical fork by dealing with technical countermeasures at the virtual currency exchange trader, but it is difficult to predict the degree of confusion by the fork, and the possibility of serious security risk I can not deny it”, the JCBA said (loosely translated).

However, the association also stated that “in the event of the fork happening sooner than Aug 1, the suspension date/time may be advanced depending on the situation.” Although the date and time for the exchanges to resume their services is not decided yet, the JCBA said, “We plan to update the acceptance of bitcoins and the resumption of withdrawals by 16:00 August 4, 2017 (Japan time).”

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