Hong Kong-based Crypto.com surprised the crypto community with the launch of its own exchange. Dubbed Crypto.com Exchange, the trading platform launches in beta format on Nov. 18 and will be powered by the company’s native CRO token. The Crypto.com (CRO) coin rallied in response to the development, giving the altcoin community something to celebrate for a change.
Source: Twitter
Crypto.com boasts a community of more than 1 million with an ecosystem comprised of products and services across trading, finance, and payments. Products include a crypto debit card that is used in Asia, the U.S., and Europe. The roadmap appears to include plans for margin trading and lending, exchange derivatives, and an OTC trading desk.
The following coins will be supported on the exchange to start: “BTC, ETH, XRP, LTC, EOS, XLM, USDT, CRO, and MCO across 3 core pairs: BTC, CRO, USDT.”
Crypto.com Exchange has published a fee table, which offers a discount to traders who participate in CRO staking or who pay fees with CRO. Investors can sign up for the beta trading platform and trading begins next week.
Crypto.com is jumping into the exchange fray at a time when the competition has never been more fierce. Binance, which boasts somewhere between 13 million and 15 million users, recently expanded its footprint into the U.S. and launched a futures exchange.
Could CRO Be the Next BNB?
The increase in use cases for the CRO token has warranted comparisons to Binance Coin (BNB), the native cryptocurrency of Binance. With every expansion that Binance has announced, including a token sale platform dubbed Binance Launchpad, BNB has shot up in value. BNB coin is up a whopping 246% year-to-date, even outpacing bitcoin’s gains.
Crypto.com is pursuing a similar path as its rival, as evidenced by a fundraising platform dubbed The Syndicate that it is unveiling alongside the new exchange. The Syndicate will serve as a vehicle by which new cryptocurrencies are listed and will support fundraising for those projects. Crypto.com Exchange won’t charge projects any listing fees, which has been a point of contention with Binance.com.
The timing of the launch is not coincidental. Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek is preparing crypto bulls to be unleashed in the market, reportedly saying:
“In the next bull run, the companies that will surely thrive are those that manage to build an entire ecosystem. It’s very hard for a company that offers only one type of product to compete with companies with much broader distribution that cover each of the use cases.”
Marszalek might want to be careful what he wishes for, as given the current state of the global economy, investors are expected to flock to cryptocurrencies sooner than later. Even the mainstream financial media is predicting it.
A report in the Financial Times is actually a scathing rebuke of crypto, warning that the next bull run, which they anticipate would be hastened by a breakdown in the U.S./China trade talks, will undoubtedly lead to a cryptocurrency market crash akin to that of 2017 that “wiped billions of dollars off the books.” The mainstream financial media, however, has a habit of targeting cryptocurrencies as the spawn of satan.