Tag: Exchange

Bitcoin’s Price Is Nearing $10K On a Single, Troubled Exchange

Cryptocurrency exchange WEX continues to see prices well out of step with the broader market amid a near-total freeze on customer withdrawals. As CoinDesk reported, customers of WEX – a kind of successor to the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e – have been on tenterhooks since July 12, as they’ve largely been unable to get outbound payments processed. The only exceptions have been for the crypto assets tether and zcash (along with lower-volume, lesser-known alternatives like namecoin and novacoin) and the price disparities suggest that some WEX users are utilizing these…

Malta Stock Exchange Inks Deals to Build Security Token Exchanges

MSX, the newly launched fintech arm of the Malta Stock Exchange, has inked several new deals aimed at creating new marketplaces for tokenized securities. The newly inked deal sees MSX team up with Neufund, a platform for securities tokenization and issuance, to build a “regulated and decentralized, global stock exchange for listing and trading tokenized securities alongside crypto-assets,” according to a press release. Exactly what will make the new exchange decentralized was not explained, however. The partners are already planning a pilot later this year, which will include a public offering of tokenized…

Bitcoin Exchange Paxful Reveals Plan to Reach Venezuela’s Unbanked

Peer-to-peer bitcoin exchange Paxful is doubling down on developing markets. Revealed exclusively to CoinDesk, the startup plans to open an office in hyperinflation-ridden Venezuela in September and release an Android app, its first for mobile devices, in October. According to Paxful co-founder Ray Youssef, the reason for both moves is that exchange use is surging in developing nations, where mobile phones are abundant and cheap but access to crypto remains scarce. Youssef told CoinDesk: “Underbanked, unbanked or people in a desperate situation, such as with market inflation. Those are the…

World’s First Bank-Backed Crypto Exchange Finally Opens to the Public

The world’s first bank-backed cryptocurrency exchange is now open to the public after months of delays. Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings formally launched its in-house crypto trading platform, dubbed VCTRADE, last month. Yet, as reported by CoinDesk at the time, the trading service was only available for a group of selected users who pre-registered with the platform last October. In an announcement released on Tuesday, SBI Holdings said the service is now fully open for users aged from 20–70 who reside in Japan. However, a registration service for corporate customers has not yet…

A Crypto Exchange Is Buying Back $24 Million-Worth of Its Own Tokens

FCoin, a new cryptocurrency exchange that saw spiking trading volume recently due to its controversial revenue model, has revealed a plan to buy back millions of its own tokens to provide capital for a new fund of funds. The exchange announced last Friday that the new fund will be backing a group of selected token funds to further invest in blockchain and cryptocurrency projects. The funds selected will all be accredited sponsors, it added. During an initial phase, it will allocate 100 million of its own FT tokens – worth around…

Something Strange Is Going On at a Crypto Exchange Called WEX

Users of WEX, the cryptocurrency exchange built on the ashes of BTC-e, are reporting withdrawal problems, raising new questions about an already mysterious trading platform. “‏Dear Wex, when withdraws will enable ??” asked Twitter user Alireza Moosavi on Friday, joining a crowd of Wex customers complaining they couldn’t withdraw funds for the second day in a row. Ehsan Mahmoodi similarly inquired, “Hello, why withdrawal is disabled?” A third user, Hasan Gusseynov, asked the exchange, in Russian, “When will everything be ok?” The user complaints follow odd trading activity observed on the…

Robinhood’s Plan to Win the Crypto Exchange War? Kill Trading Fees

As a new entrant into the cryptocurrency field, Vlad Tenev, co-CEO of online investment brokerage Robinhood, is following a time-honored business strategy: Undercut the competition. Except he’s taking it to an extreme. Launched early this year, Robinhood Crypto is differentiating itself with zero-fee transactions, with the ultimate goal of doing away with the concept of trading fees in the market altogether. Framing this effort as a force for good in line with his company’s namesake folk hero, Tenev told CoinDesk he wanted to prevent consumers looking to invest in cryptocurrencies, especially young millennials,…

OKCoin Exchange Launches in US Offering Fiat-to-Crypto Trading

Cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin has launched a branch in the U.S. market offering trading services between U.S. dollars and several major cryptocurrencies. According to OKCoin’s website on Friday, the exchange has already launched the new offering and is now accepting U.S. dollars deposits and withdrawals, as well as trading against bitcoin, bitcoin cash, litecoin, ethereum and ethereum classic. For the new offshoot, the company filed a money service business (MSB) registration with the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in November 2017. The document shows that the legal entity behind the exchange is…

Binance Exchange Backs First-Ever Decentralized Bank in Malta

Binance, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, is reportedly among a number of investors backing a decentralized bank to be launched in Malta. Bloomberg reported Thursday that Binance had confirmed it has acquired a 5 percent stake in the so-called Founders Bank at a €133 million euro ($155 million) pre-investment valuation. Founders Bank will have systems based on blockchain technology and will partner with fundraising platform Neufund in an issuance of its own “legally-binding” equity tokens, according to Binance. The bank is hoping to obtain a license from…

Bitcoin Price Spikes to Nearly $9K on Little-Known Crypto Exchange

For a cryptocurrency exchange that has seen its bitcoin price trade at a market premium since launch, the spike to nearly $9,000 on the WEX exchange on Wednesday was an outlier. Some background: in July of last year, U.S. and international law enforcement took aim at BTC-e, the long-running – and long-mysterious – cryptocurrency exchange. In a dramatic turn, a Russian national and one of BTC-e’s suspected employees was arrested and charged with laundering billions of dollars while American regulators moved to slap the exchange with a massive $110 million…