Bitfinex to Allow Ethereum Margin Trading

The popular Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex has issued a new announcement, starting at 3:00pm UTC on Friday, April 22nd they will enable margin trading for the Ether pairs ETHBTC and ETHUSD.  Margin funding will also open at that time, allowing users to place Ether margin, funding offers and bids.

The news got out when Bitfinex’s announcement page was updated exactly 24 hours before Ethereum’s margin trading starts.

Ethereum’s inclusion on Bitfinex’s trading platform was a very anticipated event, as rumours emerged on February 22 when the ETH/BTC and ETH/USD pairs were spotted at the Bitfinex’s beta testing website.

Zane Tackett Director of Community and Product Development for Bitfinex, answered the rumours in the form of a Reddit comment, he stated that Bitfinex didn’t have any plans to add Ethereum as a supported currency, that the pictures circulating on the Internet weren’t falsified, but that they weren’t enough evidence to support the claims made by some members of the community. In the same comment, Zane specified that they were having discussions about Ethereum’s inclusion in the exchange’s platform and that whatever the outcome, they would ensure the ability to easily add the currency pairs in the future.

Bitfinex added Ethereum as one of their supported currencies on March 12, however, they didn’t implement the margin trading feature at launch date. Ethereum’s trading volumes in the last 30 days equalled 1,770,083 ethers, according to Bitfinex’s website. At the time of writing this article, the numbers on Bitfinex’s stats page reflects that Ether has lost about 34.03% of its value compared to Bitcoin in the last 30 days, and the USD value of it also dropped 28.38%.

This bearish trend began after Ethereum reached its highest all-time value of 0.0372 BTC per Ether on March 13, after this milestone, the price quickly plummeted and now is set to re-test the 0.0165 support area. Ethereum holders should keep their eyes open, as Bitfinex announcement could affect the price.

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