Australia to Welcome World’s First NEM Dedicated Exchange Platform

Blockchain Global, an Australian blockchain company, has announced today that it will be powering the world’s first NEM cryptocurrency (XEM) dedicated exchange platform for the NEM Foundation.

While the common thread of most cryptocurrency exchanges today is bitcoin and often ether, the new exchange will be built exclusively for XEM. XEM is the world’s sixth largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of over US$1.4 billion.

“We hope this cutting-edge NEM Exchange will pave the way for more world-leading cryptocurrencies to take control of their future with their own cryptocurrency trading platforms,” said William Saunders, Blockchain Global’s business development manager.

The exchange will feature XEM with more cryptocurrencies to follow, “allowing the NEM Foundation to take full control of developing their small asset offering without being impacted by the slow pace of developments in the global cryptocurrency space,” according to the press release.

“With the global cryptocurrency ecosystem bursting at the seams, we want to make sure businesses using NEM’s smart asset offering are not set back by the inability of global cryptocurrency exchanges keep up with demand,” said Lon Wong, president of the NEM Foundation.

The NEM Foundation, a non-profit organization set-up to promote the NEM blockchain platform globally, is expected to spend around US$40 million in the next year to fund international expansion programs, the organization unveiled last month.

The foundation said it will allocate US$5 million on towards supporting blockchain companies incubated in its newly launched Blockchain Center, a co-working space in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, it recently opened in partnership with Blockchain Global.

NEM, a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and a blockchain platform, is currently one of the most well-funded and successful blockchain platforms in the cryptocurrency space.

The NEM blockchain software is used in a commercial blockchain called Mijin, which is owned and developed by Japanese startup Tech Bureau, the company operating the Zaif bitcoin exchange.

Mijin has been utilized and tested by several financial institutions and private companies in Japan and internationally including Hitachi, Infoteria and Japan’s largest trust bank SBI Sumishin Net Bank.

Other platforms and products built on NEM include Landstead, a land and property registry, Apostille, a notarization service, and Lux Tag, which provides digitized certificates of authenticity for products.

The NEM exchange will be built by white-labeling the technology powering Blockchain Global’s Australian Cryptocurrency Exchange (ACX), Australia’s largest bitcoin exchange by volume with over AU$600 million (US$482.5 million) worth of bitcoins traded to date. The platform currently dominates 70% of Australia’s bitcoin exchange market share.

“There is no one else in Australia building cryptocurrencies exchanges, and this partnership places us at the forefront of Australia’s fintech innovation in the cryptocurrency space,” said Sam Lee, CEO of Blockchain Global.