Japan’s financial giant SBI (Strategic Business Innovator) Group announced the official launch of its own cryptocurrency exchange called VCTRADE. The exchange was launched earlier this month, after several delays due to security concerns. Now that it is live, it will primarily deal with Ripple (XRP) tokens, and it is currently only accessible to 20,000 pre-registered users, while others will be able to join in July 2018.
SBI’s crypto exchange goes live
SBI has finally delivered on its plans to launch an in-house, bank-backed crypto exchange. This is something that the crypto community has been waiting for, for a long time now.
VCTRADE was originally announced back in October 2016 but it’s taken almost an entire year to get this exchange registered with the FSA, which was finally completed in September 2017. The initial launch was supposed to be months ago, but due to safety concerns, especially with the latest hacks of several exchanges, eg Coincheck, the launch was delayed.
Now, it’s finally officially live. However, not everyone can use its services as of yet, it currently serves only those who registered back in October 2017. Those who missed that opportunity to create an account will be able to do so at some point in July of this year.
VCTRADE starts with Ripple (XRP)
Ripple has become known as the favorite cryptocurrencies of banks and financial institutions from around the world, and SBI is no different. Two years ago, the bank entered a partnership with Ripple in order to make use of its coin and transaction-related products. Ripple will officially be the first crypto of the new exchange, at least for the time being.
There are plans to include Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin (BTC) but the date of this expansion has yet to be released. The bank’s CEO, Yoshitaka Kitao, said of the bank’s choice of cryptocurrency: they have surveyed the crypto market and found that Ripple is the most compatible crypto with the exchange’s needs.
The bank decided to terminate their partnership with Huobi Japan, which was announced back in March 2018.
