Gate.io, a popular cryptocurrency Exchange, has reportedly raised $64 million worth of cryptoasset in a week to launch its own cryptocurrency. The new token won’t be launched until its own blockchain goes live, in the fourth quarter of this year.

According to a blog post from the exchange, Gate.io saw orders of $2.99 billion worth of cryptoasset come in to buy its Gate Points, which can be used to reduce trading fees on its platform. Those who hold Gate Points, moreover, are entitled to receive 2.5 Gate Tokens (GT), Gate.io’s new cryptocurrency,

The cryptocurrency will its own proprietary blockchain called Gatechain, which the exchange is reportedly hoping to launch in the fourth quarter of this year. Gate.io has, in its blog, detailed the first phase of the Gate Points sale started earlier this month and lasted a week.

According to CoinDesk, Gate’s fees are paid in Tether’s USDT stablecoin, and one Gate Point is worth 1 USDT in reduced fees. These points were purchasable in various cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, USDT, ether, EOS, Binance’s BNB, and Huobi’s HT.

Speaking to the publication Marie Tatibouet, the exchange’s chief marketing officer, noted Gate.io has distributed 150 million GT’s to Gate Point subscribers, and collected $64 million in prepaid trading fees.

Tatibouet noted the exchange is also planning to launch its own Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) platform, presumably to compete with alternatives from competitors like Binance Launchpad and Huobi Prime.

Currently, GT tokens aren’t issued on any verifiable public blockchain. Gate.io plans to launch 1 billion GT tokens, of which 50% would be reserved for a year to used on research, development, and marketing efforts. An additional 300 million, CoinDesk reports, are to be allocated to users who subscribe to its Gate Points system.

 

Gate.io’s GT tokens will be tradeable by the end of this month, although withdrawals will only be possible once Gatechain is launched. Recognizing it«s currently impossible to track the token, Tatibouet stated:

There will be proof on how this is issued, since not every technical detail has been worked out now.

The exchange has now started a second Gate Point sale, in which it’s looking to raise $23 million in prepaid trading fees. Notably, Gate.io has been hacked back in 2017, in an incident that saw hackers take about 7,000 BTC from its cold wallets.

Earlier this year, the exchange was affected by a 51% attack on Ethereum Classic (ETC), as hackers managed to take 40,000 ETC from its wallets. The exchange covered about $200,000 worth of losses for its users,  and in an interesting twist the attackers later on returned $100,000 to the exchange.