As cryptocurrency continues to grow, more and more new investors are flocking in every day to buy into the coins they think are next slated to moon. Current exchanges are experiencing so much activity that they’ve been forced to turn away new users. In response, some individuals have gone ahead and purchased existing accounts, spending up to thousands of dollars for a single account.
Popular exchanges such as Binance, Bittrex, Bitfinex, and Cryptopia have all elected to forbid new account creations while they work to expand their infrastructure in order to take on more clients and server load. While these restrictions are only temporary – and likely only for the immediate future – impatient investors are willing to trade a significant amount of Bitcoin (BTC) in the hopes that they can earn back the costs with access to the best exchanges.
While it’s difficult to pinpoint the going rate for these accounts, it seems that sellers and buyers are agreeing on rates between .1 and .3 BTC for Binance accounts, or about US$1,650 to US$5,000. Other exchange accounts are selling for less, but still for amounts close to or more than US$1,000. Accounts are being offered largely on Bitcointalk’s Market forum and Twitter.
The trading of crypto accounts is nothing new. Bitcointalk forum accounts have been traded in large volume for years, with high ranking accounts sometimes fetching over US$1,000. These accounts have value as they can earn rewards through forum posting if they participate in a signature campaign, in which an advertisement for a project or company is placed in a user’s signature.
However, the amount of exchange accounts being traded and the prices they are fetching suggest that there is a huge number of wealthy investors currently blocked out of cryptocurrency markets. While 2017 saw a gargantuan explosion for cryptocurrencies, these trades suggest that there is still a significant amount of wealth trying to enter the market. This implies that, once these exchanges expand their operations, more massive booms may be seen as new money rushes in once more to join in the crypto craze.
Anyone keen to sell me a Binance account ? Willing to pay around 0.25BTC.
— Hercules (@hercules_stry) January 7, 2018
Binance has stated that it advises individuals not to buy or sell exchange accounts, as doing so is a security risk and a potentially dangerous transaction. Moreover, it will not refund any losses that result from a traded account. However, the platform did not mention any penalties that would be imposed on accounts that have switched hands.
