Following last months announcement, Bittrex has now officially begun offering direct trading of USD to cryptocurrency. Initial trading pairs include Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT) and TrueUSD (TUSD) with US dollar (USD).
Bittrex CEO Bill Shihara spoke to Bloomberg about a month ago and mentioned a deal with Signature Bank but it was only towards the end of last month that the exchange began adding retail customers for USD trading. Since then, it took just over two weeks for the Seattle based exchange to implement the processes necessary to begin offering the new service.
Shihara commented on the extreme vetting process that the company endured in order to secure the deal, mentioning the strict Anti-money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) checks that are a top priority for US authorities when dealing with cryptocurrency.
They have since proceeded with adding initial test phase markets and clients in order to ensure everything is running smoothly before opening to all customers. For now, only citizens from the four US states of Washington, California, New York and Montana can participate in the scheme, but this will expand over time. Some international regions are also eligible.
Fellow cryptocurrency exchange Binance has also recently announced plans to begin offering fiat to crypto trading on its platform following the move of its headquarters from FSA-regulated Japan to crypto-friendly Malta.
Bittrex offers 288 trading pairs with almost 200 tokens and has an $84,7 million market value.
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