Bitfinex announces Ethereum inclusion on trading platform

It’s hard not to notice the strength of Ethereum in recent months. The demand for the Ethereum cryptocurrency has more than doubled in the past few months.

The surge in prices coupled with Ethereum’s positive outlook has undoubtedly ignited traders’ interest. Ethereum-Bitcoin and Ethereum-USD trading pairs are widely used by various exchanges. However, not all exchanges are able to trade Ethereum. However, many well-known Bitcoin exchanges are now receiving requests from old customers to provide support for Ethereum trading.

Bitfinex, a Bitcoin exchange and trading platform, has finally complied with customer requests. They have announced that Bitfinex now supports Ethereum, allowing users to trade ether (the unit of Ethereum's cryptocurrency) on the platform. They also made it clear that while it is not their practice to add new digital assets, this is a special case because the user demand was too high to ignore, and ether has performed quite strongly in recent months, so they decided to make an exception for the benefit of their customers.

In fact, before this, users were also able to deposit ether into their trading wallets. Although Bitfinex is providing support for Ethereum trading, features such as short selling and margin trading will not be available immediately. The Bitfinex platform intends to test the waters first, and then decide whether to open these features based on the evaluation. However, the platform is optimistic about this, and they believe that if nothing unexpected happens, these features will be opened within a week. Bitfinex did not promise financial leverage in its statement, because ether is still in its early stages of development and is not as stable as Bitcoin.

In the initial phase, Bitfinex will offer entry prices to users by eliminating market maker fees. This will encourage more people to start trading Ethereum on the platform, which will increase the order volume of ether on the Bitfinex platform. Ethereum-euro trading pairs may also appear on the platform in the future, as Bitfinex is studying the possibility of offering euro trading pairs on the platform.

Ethereum market cap exceeds $1 billion

Currently, the price of one ether is close to $13. There are now more than 77.7 million ethers in circulation, so the total market value of the entire ether has exceeded $1 billion. Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum is a technology platform for developing smart contracts and other blockchain applications. Ether is a cryptographic token of the Ethereum platform that can be used to pay for publishing and accessing blockchain applications. The future application prospects of Ethereum have driven the demand for Ethereum, especially in the banking and financial technology sectors.

Ethereum will become another major technology platform after Bitcoin, but Bitcoin will still be the main alternative currency.

Original article: http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/03/12/bitfinex-ethereum-shorting-margin-trade/
Author: Gautham
Compiled by: Kyle
Source (translation): 8btc Information (http://www.8btc.com/bitfinex-support-ethereum)