Partnerships are crucial to the survival of every service provider in the cryptocurrency space. New alliances are forged every so often in an effort to strengthen individual positions accordingly. However, not every partnership is meant to last, as this industry undergoes changes virtually every other week. The relationship between Bittrex and Upbit has now officially come to an end. This is part of the South Korean firm’s effort to restructure its cryptocurrency business next month.
Upbit and Bittrex Since 2017
Most people may not even be aware of how different cryptocurrency exchanges forge official partnerships behind the scenes. More often than not, such agreements won’t be visible to the end-user in any way, thus it is only normal not much attention is paid to such partnerships either. In the case of Btitrex and Upbit, both companies have been partners since 2017. As part of this agreement, the South Korean trading platform shared its order book with Bittrex, allowing them to offer a lot more assets for trading compared to all other South Korean companies.
For Bittrex, it offered them a few benefits as well. They did share the order book with a major South Korean exchange, thus it seemed as if some of its pairs were able to directly benefit from an increase in volume. As a result, there were more trading fees to go around, yielding an increase in overall earnings for both companies. However, it now seems this collaboration will come to a permanent end, primarily due to Upbit taking a completely different approach regarding some of its markets.
Major Changes for Upbit
South Korea has positioned itself as the primary cryptocurrency trading region in the world. It has successfully taken China’s position in this regard ever since the latter country’s government decided to ban all crypto trading until further notice. That being said, the increasing interest in cryptocurrency across South Korea has also resulted in some interesting regulatory measures. Particularly for exchanges, the new rules haven’t always been too beneficial to them. Upbit is no exception in this regard, which forces the company to make some big changes moving forward.
A major restructuring will see the company reorganize Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether trading markets accordingly. These are the markets other than Korean Won markets, which will remain unchanged. It is certainly possible more markets will be delisted except for just the privacy coins, as those will be removed from the platform fairly soon. No South Korean exchange is allowed to let users trade privacy coins in this day and age, but that doesn’t mean other altcoins are safe from being purged either. None of those changes will affect Bittex directly, though.
New Potential Listing
Following the end of the Upbit-Bittrex partnership, it is possible the South Korean platform will add some extra currencies to its order books. Rumor has it Kakao’s digital currency, as well as Ground X, may make their way to this exchange in the weeks to come. That would certainly be an interesting development to keep an eye on, although nothing has been officially confirmed at this point. Neither of those currencies would be “eligible” to be listed on Bittrex, by the look of things.
