Cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform BitMEX has announced the launch of four new altcoin/USDT futures contracts, with two being for cryptocurrencies that were not yet listed on the platform.
According to BitMEX’s announcement, the trading pairs will be against the USDT stablecoin and not bitcoin “in response to demand” from its users. The exchange points out USDT pairs account for over 60% of overall altcoin volume, and that the listings are looking to better meet users’ trading needs.
The two new cryptoassets BitMEX is listing are Chainlink’s LINK token and Tezos (XTZ). It’s worth noting Tezos has in the past been listed on BitMEX, before the project’0s initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017, when each XTZ/BTC futures contract was settled at the sale price of 0.0002 BTC per XTZ.
The exchange’s announcement reads:
LINK will be the first DeFi-linked contract available on the BitMEX platform, and together with XTZ, they represent two of the highest market-cap and heavily traded Altcoins, and are a further step in our aim to provide our users the best coverage of liquid, high quality products.
BitMEX added it’s planning to introduce more altcoins listings “over the coming months,” and that it’s also introducing USDT underlying contracts for Cardano (ADA) and EOS. The contracts will have a fixed bitcoin multiplier, which allows traders to long or short each coin without holding the altcoin itself or USDT.
BitMEX gained popularity for allowing traders to enter highly-leveraged positions on cryptocurrencies back in 2014, and at one point in 2018 traded over 1 million BTC in only 24 hours, which at the time equated to over $8 billion.
Over time various competing exchanges launched cryptocurrency derivatives with high leverage available. These include Binance, Huobi, and OKEx. According to CryptoCompare’s July 2020 Exchange Review, these three saw their derivatives trading volumes rise over 10% each that month, while BitMEX’s trading volumes declined by 2.2%.
Featured image via Unsplash.
