Forked asset policy

A forked asset policy is written as discretion rather than obligation: the platform decides case by case whether to credit either branch of a split. Bitstamp carries one in seven Terms of Use documents, each with its own version date, where it is numbered 13, 14.5, 25 or 28, or left unnumbered. Coins you hold yourself exist on both branches whatever any company decides.

How it works

A forked asset policy reserves three separate decisions to the platform, and losing any one of them is enough to leave you with nothing.

The first is support. Bitstamp's terms say it will assess "at our sole discretion" whether to support a fork or airdrop and is "under no obligation to support any fork, airdrop or similar". The second is crediting. Its Singapore terms go further and say that even where a fork is accepted, the company decides "whether to credit" the tokens to your account "and upon what terms to do so", and is not liable if it never does. The third is timing: the Bitstamp Ltd and USA Inc terms warn that Bitstamp may "temporarily suspend operations in relation to that fork" without giving you advance notice, which is the part that costs money, because it lands while both branches are first priced.

For a branch the platform declines, the wording is blunt. Bitstamp does not acquire "any right, title or interest" in the unsupported forked asset, has no obligation to act on your instructions about it, and carries no liability for it. The asset is not held for you and not owed to you. There is also a layer most readers never see: Bitstamp's terms tell you to check the fork policies of its third-party custodians, the BitGo and Copper customer terms, because a sub-custodian may be unable to support a split the exchange would.

One clause runs the other way. The Europe S.A., UK and Singapore terms let Bitstamp acquire title to a forked asset it has decided not to support, where a sub-custodian did support it and the company judged that it should not, citing "concerns over viability or regulatory and risk appetite considerations". A coin you were never credited can therefore end up as the platform's property rather than an unclaimed balance.

Where you see it

You see a forked asset policy in the terms you accepted at signup, filed under a heading that pairs forks with airdrops, and its number changes with the entity you contracted with.

At Bitstamp the same substance appears as clause 13 for Bitstamp Europe S.A., 14.5 for Bitstamp USA Inc, 25 for Bitstamp Asia Pte. Ltd. and 28 for Bitstamp UK Limited, and as an unnumbered section in the Bitstamp Ltd terms last updated May 30, 2025. The definitions table is where the scope is set: a fork is "a substantial change in the operating rules of a protocol", which is broad enough to cover upgrades nobody expects to produce a second coin. The US terms extend the same discretion to metacoins, colored coins and side chains derived from an asset Bitstamp already supports.

Read it before a split is announced, not during one. Each of the seven documents carries its own version date, so this clause is the only written answer to the question everyone asks in the week a chain divides, and not necessarily the one you read at signup.

Forked asset policy vs hard fork

A hard fork is an event on the network; a forked asset policy is one company's contract about what it will do afterwards. The fork happens whether or not anyone signs anything, and every balance recorded before the split exists on both branches by arithmetic. What the policy governs is access: whether the platform holding your keys will let you touch the second branch, sell it, or withdraw it. Keys in your own hands make the question moot, which is the practical reason to move coins off a platform before a scheduled split.