Ethereum Classic and Ripple XRP have both been added to Bitvo, a Canadian crypto exchange for individual and institutional investors. Bitvo is less than one year old, but already offers a bold array of financial services that set it apart from many older platforms.
With Bitvo, users can spend cash held on the platform with the Bitvo credit card (through VISA). Bitvo also offers excellent technical analysis visualisation services, 24/7 customer support, and service for businesses and individuals seeking to buy cryptocurrency in excess of $250,000 per day (Canadian dollars).
Ethereum Classic and Ripple Join…
Bitvo’s array of available digital currencies is conservative but well chosen. As Bitvo is marketing itself to institutional investors, it has chosen cryptocurrencies with high trading potential, prices that are stable by industry standards, and tangible use cases.
Ethereum Classic ETC and Ripple XRP join DASH, Bitcoin BTC, Ether ETH, Litecoin LTC, and Bitcoin Cash BCH. It’s noteworthy that, with the exception of Ether, Ethereum Classic and Ripple are the only coins on Bitvo not meant to function solely as currencies. This demonstrates the ongoing potential of advanced digital currencies, even from the perspective of institutional investors.
Will Ethereum Classic and Ripple Attract Institutional Interest?
While not earth-shattering news in itself, this news item is further confirmation to a curious market about institutional investors’ interest in digital currencies other than Bitcoin and Ethereum. Those two digital currencies defined the 2017 bull-run era of cryptocurrency, but both have disappointed in recent months.
Arguably, the best news of 2018 has been in the ETC and XRP camps. Ethereum Classic’s addition to Coinbase last month was a major win for the ETC camp, a community that many derided as doomed only months prior. For Ripple, 2018 has been a year of major XRP partnerships, involving projects associated with Wal-Mart, PNC Bank, and numerous remittance service companies.
Further Bitvo Prospects for XRP and ETC
The addition of XRP and ETC is significant for other reasons, as well. For one, Bitvo is one of the lowest-priced exchanges in cryptocurrency, especially when considering the services it offers. Traders pay only 0.25% (both buy and sell orders). While there are lower trade rates available through exchanges like Binance, you won’t find these prices among exchanges that accept fiat payments.
Bitvo takes Canadian dollars in exchange for every coin in its growing ecosystem. Fiat on-ramps, as these are often called, are very important for new investors. As costs and regulations prevent most exchanges from accepting fiat, some would-be investors never make initial purchases. Having more fiat options for investors in the Canadian market is good for the global international market; the more Canadians buying Ripple, the better returns for investors worldwide.
Bitvo’s institutional investor services need time to prove their value, but they could make a difference for worldwide crypto prices in the coming days. Coinbase has also added institutional services in recent days, and rumours of venture capital and private equity firms entering the space are becoming more frequent.
While we can’t predict the future, the entrance of institutional money into the cryptocurrency markets would be as likely to spark a bull run as any other factor. If traditional market money decides that current crypto prices can’t fall much lower, their first purchases could be very large indeed.
(*Information in this article should not be taken as investment advice.)
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