Bittrex has made it clear that the company will be entering the fiat currency trading industry fairly soon. In the first phase, the company will add USD trading, although it will seemingly be limited in terms of its availability. Given the US’s fractured cryptocurrency regulation, such an approach makes a lot of sense.
Bittrex’s Plan of Action
When Bittrex announced that they would soon be introducing USD trading, it got the cryptocurrency community excited. That was only to be expected, as fiat currency gateways are difficult to come by for most altcoins. Since Bittrex remains one of the largest altcoin exchanges out there, offering various USD trading pairs for top currencies can help introduce a lot more money to the cryptocurrency industry.
Although it remains unclear which currencies will get USD trading pairs, Bittrex has unveiled a few more details regarding their fiat currency trading plans. First of all, the current plan of action involves exposing a small group of Bittrex users to participate in USD markets. This “live test” is direly needed to determine whether or not the integration plan is in need of revision.
As one would expect, this functionality will remain limited. Participants in Washington State, New York, Montana, and California will be given access to USD trading first. This only encompasses a small portion of the United States, although the addition of New York will certainly introduce a lot of positive changes. This US state doesn’t have the best of reputations when it comes to Bitcoin, mainly because of the BitLicense requirement.
There is another limiting factor which users may need to be made aware of. While Bittrex plans to eventually roll out fiat currency support to all customers, their main focus is on corporate customers. Retail customers will need to wait at least two weeks before getting access to this new trading functionality. That’s not entirely surprising at this stage, although it may not necessarily be to everyone’s liking.
It does appear there will be no additional verification requirements when it comes to accessing USD markets. That is a positive development, as it will potentially introduce a lot more users to trading altcoins on Bittrex with the US dollar. It should be relatively easy for existing users to benefit from this new service by the time it goes live.
All of these developments are relatively positive for the Bittrex trading platform. More consumers and institutional investors are showing an interest in cryptocurrency these days. It is a bit unfortunate that the rollout will occur in multiple stages, but that is only to be expected. Whether or not a lot of people will engage in USD trading on Bittrex remains to be determined.
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