Forex and CFD broker, AvaTrade (previously known as AVAFX) announced today that it had partnered with financial technology provider Gold-i to offer bitcoin trading on its trading platforms. With the news, AvaTrade clients will be able to short and buy a synthetic bitcoin CFD derivative with 5:1 leverage. Similar to the majority of trading on retail forex platforms, BTC/USD trades on the platform won’t lead to actual executions of bitcoins taking place, with order flow staying within the trading platform.
The result though is more than just another forex broker offering a bitcoin derivative. As a technology provider that services forex brokers, the integration of bitcoin pricing from Gold-i will now make the product available to all of its existing and future clients. Brokers use firms like Gold-i to stream data into their trading platforms as well as assist with their Risk Management and Liquidity needs. Based on pricing that exists on AvaTrade’s platform, it appears that Gold-i is using data from MtGox.
Tom Higgins, CEO of Gold-i commented on the news, and highlighted that bitcoin pricing will now be available for all of its MetaTrader broker clients as he said “New currencies rarely come into existence and Bitcoin is very different to other currencies which have launched. It has global appeal and is likely to be very successful. Now that we have added Bitcoin to MT4/MT5, we plan to add it to the Gold-i portfolio to sell it to others. I believe there will be an increasing demand for brokers to follow AvaTrade and offer Bitcoin to their clients.”
In terms of the potential of Gold-i’s integration, we can take a look at the binary options sector. Similar to forex, the vast majority of brokers utilize technology from third parties. As such, due to leading platform provider, SpotOption integrating bitcoin binary options into its suite of products, we have recently seen their broker clients begin to announce that they are offering trading in the digital currency. Examples include i-Options and TradeRush. For Gold-i, their clients include FOREX,com, Swissquote, Hantec Markets, ETX Capital and Nomura, MIG Bank, and SVSFX.
