Cryptocurrency exchange BTCC– one of the world’s oldest exchanges – has announced today that it is relaunching its platform, with plans to issue its own token in “the next few months.”
With the company announcing that the updated exchange is now live, the site will offer new crypto-fiat pairs including bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), bitcoin cash (BCH) and litecoin (LTC), as well as crypto-to-crypto pairs and also will reportedly offer enhanced liquidity and faster deposits and withdrawals.
Launched in 2011, BTCC was once one of the top-three Chinese crypto exchanges. In September 2017, however, the platform closed its doors to yuan-trading following the Chinese ICO ban, and has been largely inactive since December after moving to Hong-Kong.
The announcement also saw BTCC revealing a new “points system” designed to reward users for using the exchange. Customers can earn points through trading, signing up, and completing identity verification, and then convert the points into BTCC’s own tokens.
Trans-Fee Mining
This latest system strongly resembles a new breed of exchange, with several Chinese platforms starting to move away from traditional fee structures with the advent of “trans-fee mining.”
Under the new model, crypto transaction fees are reimbursed by exchanges with their own tokens immediately. BTCC’s new system however, sees users redeem tokens at a later stage, something the company’s vice president of international business – Aaron Choi – elaborated upon, telling CoinDesk:
“The (trans-fee mining) model draws a lot of attention at the moment. … But there's still a business risk so our management is reviewing this model, how it can be sustained in a long term. So giving away points for trading that can be converted into our token in the future is what we think makes sense for now.”
With trans-fee mining drawing criticism from many within the industry for its potential for manipulation and apparent similarities to ICOs, many will pay close attention to how this new variant fares in the Chinese market.
