Bitfinex, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has added Stellar Lumens and Verge to its list of supported currencies. This follows recent news of new fiat pairs including British pounds GBP and Japanese Yen JPY.
Bitfinex Adds Two Coins and More Trading Pairs
Bitfinex now supports 56 cryptocurrencies, all of which can be traded with USD and BTC. Last month they introduced trading for 12 new Ethereum tokens which have a combined market capitalization of more than $1.1 billion. Stellar and Verge have market caps of $8 billion and $1.1 billion respectively. Bitfinex is currently the sixth ranked exchange with a 24-hour trade volume of $1 trillion.
Stellar is an open-source network for building financial products. It aims to provide a decentralized way for banks and individuals to connect, offering fast cross-border transactions. Co-founder Jed McCaleb was originally a co-founder of Ripple, but decided to start his own cryptocurrency over fears that Ripple was not decentralized enough. Stellar was originally a Ripple fork but has had its code re-written since.
Verge is a Bitcoin fork designed for everyday payments. It was created in 2014 under the name DogeCoinDark. It is touted a privacy coin due to the Wraith protocol which allows users to switch between private and public ledgers. When Wraith is used, transaction data is not available via the blockchain explorer.
On April 17, Verge announced a partnership with Mindgeek, who own Pornhub and other adult entertainment sites. This was revealed two weeks after they launched a four day long crowdfund which was mostly fulfilled by TokenPay, who are partners with Verge. In the run up to the announcement, the price increased by 150% and sits currently at $0.08.
On March 29, Bitfinex added new fiat pairs including support for British pounds (GBP) and Japanese Yen (JPY). The Japanese market is important as the Japanese Yen accounts for 55% of global Bitcoin trading, according to Coinhills. On the other hand, GBP trading volume amounts to less than 1% of the global market.
Jean-Louis van der Velde, CEO of Bitfinex, said: “We are very pleased to add to our selection of fiat offerings and to do our part in making cryptocurrencies more globally accessible. We are making a strong push for improved transparency and worldwide regulatory collaboration, and our ability to add support for these markets is a strong win on that front.”
Bitfinex also announced support for the Tron (TRX) migration to MainNet in June. Withdrawals and deposits will be affected between June 21 and June 26. Trading will not be affected.
Bitfinex use a multi-faceted method for deciding which cryptocurrencies to add. They take into account user requests, shareholder interest, market capitalization, token design parameters, and their own assessment of the cryptocurrency. This includes researching the team behind the coin and their ability to solve technical and non-technical issues.
Trading is now live for XLM and XVG.
Both pairs can be traded against BTC, ETH, USD, EUR, GBP & JPY.
— Bitfinex (@bitfinex) May 1, 2018
By Tim Copeland.
Image from Shutterstock.
