The first crypto-exchange fully owned by a bank has just opened new registrations to the public. The SBI Virtual Currencies exchange – simply known as VCTRADE – now accepts new applications or registrations from users that were not part of the pre-registration group from back in October.
In an announcement on the SBI Virtual Currencies exchange, the team at VCTRADE stated that (translated by google):
Information on starting acceptance of new account opening application.
Thank you very much for giving us your expectations for the start of service by many customers.
Starting accepting applications for opening new accounts of our virtual currency exchange service (VCTRADE) from today.
* Account opening is available for individuals from 20 to 70 years old residing in Japan. Applications for establishing accounts from corporate customers are not currently accepted.
From now on, VCTRADE thank you.
Further instructions on how to open an account with the exchange have been provided by the via this link. To note, is that trading services are currently only available to residents in the country of Japan. Anyone who wishes to open a user account with the crypto exchange can now do so through the available sign up link.
Upon launching the SBI Virtual Currencies, the exchange initially supported trading of XRP against the Japanese Yen. However, Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) were soon added on the exchange less than two weeks later.
The public launch of the VCTRADE platform comes almost 2 years after the SBI Holdings expressed intentions of building a cryptocurrency exchange back in October 2016. The launch has been postponed a few times due to the firm working on guaranteeing the exchange had enough internal security to avoid hacks such as those witnessed on Coincheck, Bithumb, Conrail and most recently, Bancor.
The opening of the SBI Virtual Currencies exchange is particularly important for the XRP community who believe the exchange will increase the liquidity of XRP as well as help increase the demand of the digital asset further boosting its value.