Chinese ‘Big 3’ Bitcoin Exchange Huobi Launches Ethereum Trading

Major Chinese cryptocurrency exchange Huobi will begin trading for Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, on Wednesday, May 31st.

Huobi, one of China’s ‘big three’ exchanges alongside OkCoin and BTCC, began listing Ethereum (ETH) this weekend. The exchange has implemented the CNY/ETH trading pair, with trading to commence midday Wednesday.

In an announcement, Huobi stated:

We are excited to announce the CNY/ETH will be listed on our exchange. Trading will start at 12:00 May 31st (GMT +8). ETH deposit and withdrawal is available from now [then] on.

To bait users into trading Ethereum, traders of Bitcoin or Litecoin will be rewarded with 5mETH (0.0005 ETH). For our days after launch up to Jaune 3rd, Huobi will charge an introductory commission fee of 0.01% before an increase to 0.05%.

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The exchange pointed to the “many aspects [of] Ethereum that could outperform bitcoin” In its announcement to launch ETH trading. Cost, speed and scalability are underlined, in particular. In its official Chinese notice, Huobi revealed the growing popularity of Ethereum as a primary factor behind enabling ETH trading. Further, the exchange revealed that users had repeatedly called on the exchange to launch ETH trading.

The cryptocurrency market’s current boom period sees Ethereum grow over 25x since the turn of 2017, outpacing a number of other cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin. Last week, Ethereum’s market cap reached half of that of Bitcoin for a brief period. Over the last fortnight alone, Ethereum rose to $100 for the first time, before scaling beyond an all-time high of $220.

The backing of a number of corporate giants including the likes of Microsoft, Intel, JP Morgan and Toyota – as a part of the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance – is widely seen as the most recent driving factor toward Ethereum price gains. The EEA, a working group developing Ethereum-based blockchain solutions for enterprise, added 86 new members last week, nearly tripling its initial founding 30 members at the time of launch in February this year.

At the time of publishing, Ethereum is trading around $175, with a market cap of nearly $16 billion.

Featured image from Shutterstock. Chart from CoinMarketCap.