Coinflex, the former cryptocurrency exchange responsible for the BCH to sBCH cross-chain bridge, has made partial repayments to SmartBCH Alliance Limited as part of its restructuring plans. 

SmartBCH, a Bitcoin Cash sidechain compatible with Ethereum, received distributions from Coinflex, including approximately 4.28 million rvUSD ($750,000), 652,000 USDC ($652,000) and 6,834 BCH ($1.6 million), according to a blog post. Of the USDC received, 80% has been swapped into bitcoin cash while reserving the remaining portion for legal and operational expenses. SmartBCH currently owns a total of 10,758 BCH.

Bitcoin cash surge

The repayment comes after a surge in the price of bitcoin cash, which has gained more than 110% over the last seven days, outperforming other major currencies in the top 100, according to CoinGecko data.

BCH/USD chart via CoinGecko.

Bitcoin Cash and other Bitcoin forks have particularly benefited from the rising crypto market following a flurry of spot bitcoin ETF filings, with Wisdom Tree, Bitwise, Invesco and Valkyrie all submitting applications to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after BlackRock’s filing on June 15.

EDX Markets, a new cryptocurrency exchange backed by Citadel Securities, Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab launched last week, has also listed bitcoin cash.

FLEX and OX, tokens connected to Coinflex, rose 53% and 65%, respectively, over the last week.

Ongoing restructuring and OPNX rebrand

Coinflex is currently undergoing a legal process for restructuring, as approved by the Seychelles Courts on March 6. The exchange first suspended withdrawals in June 2022, citing “extreme market conditions and continued uncertainty involving a counterparty.” Coinflex was one of many crypto firms hit by the collapse of the Terra ecosystem in May 2022, which wiped out over $40 billion in investor value in a matter of days. In September, the company unveiled its restructuring proposal to turn over more than 65% of its equity to creditors and vest 15% to employees.

On March 8, Coinflex rebranded to Open Exchange (OPNX) following approval of its restructuring plan. Coinflex founders Mark Lamb and Sudhu Arumugam are working with the co-founders of bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital — Kyle Davies and Su Zhu — on the new venture.

SmartBCH said it plans to open an account on OPNX and will gradually convert rvUSD into bitcoin cash through the exchange. It added that, according to the terms of restructuring, it was still entitled to, but hadn’t yet received common equity in Coinflex and one board set at Coinflex.

It has also burned 33,365.67 sBCH, returning them to the old bridge address. As a result, there are now 67,756.766 sBCH in circulation on the sidechain. 

Maintaining the peg

SmartBCH said it had entered into an agreement with Coinflex to take over the responsibility of maintaining the 1:1 peg between sBCH, the sidechain’s native token, and BCH using the assets it holds. Receiving the assets from Coinflex strengthens the stability of the sBCH:BCH peg, it said.