After months of long delays, the cryptocurrency exchange launched by Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings, finally went live today.
The crypto exchange called VCTRADE is only open for the moment, for users who pre-registered with the platform in October 2017. However, in a statement made by SBI, it is expected that the service will be made available to the general public by the end of July.
VCTRADE will initially concentrate focus on XRP trading, the native token of the Ripple protocol. After an unspecified time period, the exchange will start supporting the trading of bitcoin and bitcoin cash.
VCTRADE’s decision to just focus initially on the trading of Ripple (XRP) is not unexpected. SBI Holdings’ already have workings in place. It piloted the Ripple technology using the distributed ledger to make transactions across borders.
SBI Holdings Overcomes Delays to Launch VCTRADE
SBI Virtual Currencies is the wholly owned subsidiary of SBI Holdings and was established in October 2016. The aim was to launch Japan’s first cryptocurrency exchange backed by a large bank or financial institution. Just over a year later in September 2017, the platform successfully registered with the Japanese FSA (Financial Services Agency). However, in February 2018, it was announced that the opening of the VCTRADE exchange would be delayed due to security concerns. The announcement of the delay followed the highly publicized hack of the Coincheck crypto exchange. The Coincheck hack saw $373 million withdrawn in a single day and raised questions over the security of crypto exchanges.
The launch of VCTRADE comes delays caused by the partnership between SBI Virtual currencies and leading crypto exchange Huobi being cancelled in March this year. SBI Virtual Currencies was to use Huobi’s technological and financial resources to help with the launch of VCTRADE.
VCTRADE will face stiff competition from Monex Group who recently purchased Coincheck. The Monex group placed some of its top executives to run CoinCheck , with the intention to relaunch the crypto exchange.
