Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily volume, is preparing to allow trade across fiat currency pairs for the first time.
Bloomberg has reported that Zhao Changpeng, Binance’s Chief Executive Officer, confirmed that the Euro will be the first fiat currency supported, with more added at a later date. It is understood that this is directly related to the relocation of Binance’s main operations to Malta just months ago.
Currently, Binance only supports trade of digital currencies – opting for stablecoins Tether (USDT) and (TUSD) as stand-ins for government issued currencies.
The confidence shown by Zhao relating to the imminent offering of fiat-pairs implies that Binance may be close to securing backing of one or more international financial institutions. No specifics were revealed, but Zhao did hint that talks with regulators and financial institutions in Taiwan had commenced.
The offering of a Euro onramp into cryptocurrencies could be just the thing to keep up the momentus growth enjoyed by Binance in the last year. Just this week, it was reported that the exchange supports more than 9 million users. In January, it had just over 2 million.
The rapidly increasing user base hasn’t done much for profits though, which fell from US200 million in Q4 of last year to $US150 million in Q1 of this year.
The fall hasn’t stopped Binance from re-investing in the blockchain though, at the start of June it was announced they would be launching a US$1 billion venture capital fund to support cryptocurrency and blockchain development.
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