This, I believe, is the basis of the unjust enrichment claim. Coinbase technically owns the BTC in its wallets, and you can bet even though they aren't supporting it, they are receiving the associated BCC. They just aren't passing it on to the beneficial owners (their clients).
Would that not only become relevant if BCC were to become more valuable (say in USD) than BTC? As of now, Coinbase is sitting on the fence basically (just like everyone else who holds their own private key and hasn't made a transaction since the fork). They can decide to use their (users') coins on either blockchain but not on both.
So what Coinbase has is similar to a call option on BCC.
> They can decide to use their (users') coins on either blockchain but not on both.
Please stop saying this. Read your own grandparent comment:
> There is no "conversion", it is free money for all BTC holders. Everyone who owned BTC, now owns BTC+BCC.
It isn't possible to spend BTC on the BCC blockchain, because coins spent on the BCC blockchain are BCC by definition. Once you've spent your BCC on the BCC blockchain, you still have your BTC on the BTC blockchain; that's what a fork means.
I see what you mean. That's pretty amazing. Thanks for explaining.
I would have expected the two forks to coordinate sufficiently to make sure double spending is not possible. But I see how this would have been extremely difficult if not impossible without one of these two rival camps agreeing to be the opt-in network while the other one remains the default.
