As US crypto exchange Bittrex gears up to allow fiat trading the company has updated its customers on its phased approach to implementing the change.
According to the company blog the approach is designed to ensure the processes and systems are operating without issues before the system goes live to the clients. The latest phase involves allowing a select small group of retail customers to participate in USD markets to enable testing and evaluation.
The initial announcement was made on May 31 when the company decided to open fiat trading for corporate customers as part of the first phase. The first markets to be opened were Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT) and TrueUSD (TUSD).
Two weeks later the second phase has been implemented to include participants who reside in Washington State, California, New York and Montana as well as qualified international regions. The announcement went on to state;
“Don’t worry, as we roll out future phases, more states will be added. So, please continue to be patient as we roll out these phases overtime. Also, if you’re reading this and you aren’t a Bittrex customer yet, you should sign-up now to have the opportunity to be included in USD trading in the future.”
Once all phases have been completed customers that qualify will have a smooth and streamlined process for buying cryptocurrencies directly using USD. The move places Bittrex in direct competition with Coinbase and may even improve its standings since Coinbase only offers four crypto currencies, five when Ethereum Classic is added. Bittrex has almost 200 cryptocurrencies and according to the post “we have a deep pool of good candidates to consider for USD trading pairs.” To entice new users the company went on to add;
“In addition to methodically adding more customers, it probably won’t be too much longer before we start adding new USD pairs – pairs that may only be found on our platform.”
In a further announcement the company said that it would be rebranding and ticker symbol changes on June 20. Bitcoin Cash (BCC) will undergo a ticker change to BCH, the name remains unchanged, Legends (LGD) ticker and name will change to More Coin (MORE) and Bitswift (SWIFT) ticker will change to BITS, name remains unchanged. In order to make this change, Bittrex will need to take the BCC, LGD and SWIFT markets offline for at least three hours.
