SBI Holdings has launched its VCTRADE service for trading digital (virtual) currencies, a move planned since the fall of last year. The Japanese financial giant created a subsidiary last year with the aim of offering crypto trading in a very favorable regulatory climate.
VCTRADE launched on June 4th, and is open only to traders who completed the pre-registraion in October 2017. VCTRADE is a fully legalized, bank-backed cryptocurrency exchange - an important feat, as there have been cases in Southeast Asia, as well as Europe, where banks have withdrawn support for exchanges, forcing them to seek alternatives to taking fiat.
SBI Holdings boasted of building VCTRADE to have “the industry's lowest spread, as well as the world's best low-latency trading environment using the trading system (matching engine) of the leading US stock exchange NASDAQ”.
The launch of VCTRADE happened with a delay of a few months, over security and regulatory concerns. Part of the delay was due to a failed partnership with Huobi, one of the leading Korean exchanges. The new exchange will have its security protected by Secom Trust Systems, Co. But the launch also caused general enthusiasm in the crypto community:
https://twitter.com/APompliano/status/1003617052526030849
VCTRADE is a curious exchange in that it would start trading Ripple (XRP) first, offering a fiat on-ramp for the promising digital asset. Later, Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash will be added. The decision to start with the Ripple protocol is due to the involvement with SBI Holdings with the Ripple international remittances system.
The XRP digital asset is, at the moment, mostly traded in Korea, and has been turned down by the US-based fully legalized exchange, Coinbase. The presence of a Japanese exchange may boost liquidity and demand for XRP.
At the moment, XRP is trading at relatively depressed prices, at $0.65 after growing 12% in the past week. But the gains for XRP have been relatively slim, and another market downturn may take the asset lower. XRP volumes are extremely thin, even on Korean exchanges, and for now, the effect of VCTRADE has not affected the markets.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
