Cryptology, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange, announced on Wednesday that it has launched cryptocurrency margin trading for its users.
“The Cryptology community has been clear in its desire for margin trading opportunities, which are not commonly offered in the crypto arena,” said Herbert Sim, Chief Marketing Officer at Cryptology. “We’re responding to that desire by offering our own functionality for experienced and institutional traders.”
A statement released by the company indicates that users can, for the moment, trade with Leverage in two currency pairs - BTC/EUR and ETH/EUR.
For the moment, those are the only two crypto/fiat currency pairs that the exchange is allowing leveraged trading in. The company did state, however, that it will announce more crypto/fiat currency pairs for leveraged trading in the near future.
Traders will be limited to trading with leverage of 5:1 or 10:1. Whether those caps are determined by the user or the company and, if it is the latter, what thresholds have to be met to set leverage at one level and not the other, is unclear.
Cryptology P2P lending
Cryptology clients, who might be more risk-averse, can also lend their own cryptocurrency holdings to other traders that want to engage in margin trading and earn interest on those loans.
The exchange says that it developed the service offering after it had received repeated requests for more margin-trading and peer-to-peer lending (P2P) services.
By offering the service, Cryptology is continuing an industry-wide trend in the cryptocurrency market whereby exchanges act as both broker and exchange. Whether or not that is a positive for traders remains to be seen.
Wednesday’s announcement also comes amidst a turbulent period for the cryptocurrency market. In the past week, Bitcoin has lost almost two-thirds of its value, with the price of one Bitcoin falling from $6270 to $4380.
