As rumors swirl towards the future of digital currency trading in China, BTC-e has announced the launch of yuan denominated Bitcoin and litecoin trading. Being launched are three products, USD/CNH, BTC/CNH, and LTC/CNH. Unlike products offered from local Chinese exchanges, the BTC-e offering is based on CNH pricing, which is offshore renminbi pricing, versus the onshore CNY currency. Although similar, the main difference between the two issued currencies is that CNY pricing is controlled by China’s government price pegging, while the Bank of China Hong Kong version is freely floating.
In terms of China, it will be interesting to see whether the addition of the offshore renminbi offering will attract Chinese traders, CNY is easier to fund with, and there are plenty of local exchanges. However, if in fact China’s Central Bank is applying restrictions to local exchanges, BTC-e’s CNH offering could become a familiar alternative for them. As such, the timing of the launch may be a result of BTC-e aiming to capitalize on any potential fallout of limits applied on Chinese exchanges.
On its launch, BTC/CNH and LTC/CNH will be available for trade on both the exchange’s web-based order entry interface, as well as on the MetaTrader 4 platform. Similar to other products available on BTC-e’s MetaTrader 4 platform, both the bitcoin and litecoin denominated trading pairs will be offered with Leverage ; allowing customers to open positions of up to 3X equity in their accounts.
For BTC-e, the new products strengthen their position as an exchange being focused towards existing traders, as they are one of the few venues providing leveraged bitcoin trading as well as execution using the MetaTrader 4 platform via a partnership with FXOpen.
