According to the announcement, Bittrex will be making available fiat trading options for Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Ripple (XRP) on August 20. The new trading pairs will be offered along the USD trading options already listed on the platform: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Tether (USDT), and TrueUSD (TUSD).
The company’s strategy involves steadily adding tokens to its USD markets through a “phased approach” for USD trading. Bittrex went on to say that it will adopt a gradual tactic to ramp ”up these markets” to make sure everything is in order before offering them to experienced customers.
“In addition to broader acceptance, expanding fiat markets to the top digital currencies on our trading platform will help limit the dominance and influence of any one token over other blockchain projects – a necessary evolution if we’re going to unleash blockchain’s potential benefits for consumers and businesses,” said Bittrex.
Bittrex was first established back in 2014 by Bill Shihara along with two other partners, all of them being former employees at the security team at Amazon. Shihara announced in February 2018 that the exchange has plans of making available USD trading to the majority of its users.
In October of last year, Bittrex suddenly disabled thousands of accounts for compliance reviews without giving any warnings prior to this move. Later in December, Bittrex temporarily halted all new user registrations, claiming they were unable at that time to accurately authenticate each new user because of high demand. The exchange later opened again but added more requirements to its list.
Currently, Bittrex is ranked as the 23rd largest exchange according to trading volume, having a trading volume of more than $72 million. From Coinmarketcap statistics, the exchange experienced a 16 percent increase over a 24-hour period.