Crypto exchange Liquid has made two major announcements. On its Twitter, the exchange said it would enable Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Ripple (XRP) for margin trading and lending. In this way, it will enable trading pairs of BCH and XRP with the Japanese Yen, US Dollar, and Singapore Dollar.
What is Liquid?
Liquid is a Japan-based cryptocurrency platform that was the first to obtain a license from the country’s regulators. It was launched in 2014 by Quoine and was first known as Quoinex, offering fiat-to-crypto trading.
In 2017, Quoine launched Qryptos, a platform for crypto-to-crypto trading. In August 2018, Quoinex and Qryptos merged into a single platform that became Liquid.
Over the past 12-months, the crypto exchange executed $50 billion worth of transactions. It supports over 80 cryptocurrencies and five fiat currencies.
Liquid is a low-fee exchange. It uses a “maker-taker” pricing model that divides traders into two groups.
“Makers” usually place “buy” orders below the market price and “sell” orders above it. These orders take more time to be completed. On the other hand, “takers” get their orders fulfilled immediately.
Under Liquid’s fee schedule, “takers” pay a 0.15% fee, while “makers” get a rebate of 0.075% from the value of the transaction. However, Liquid offers a 50% discount if traders pay the fees with QASH.
QASH (QASH) is the cryptocurrency that Quoine created to fuel the Liquid platform. In 2017, Quoine conducted an Initial Coin Offering for QASH. It raised $100 million.
Liquid Allows HODLers to Earn Interest
Two features that Liquid has made available for traders are margin trading and lending. Margin trading represents the process of borrowing money from the broker. In this particular exchange’s case, traders can borrow up to 25 times their disposable amount.
New to https://t.co/OR9DJySfgW, we will enable $BCH for margin trading and lending.
BCH/JPY, BCH/USD and BCH/SGD will all be available from the margin trading dashboard by the end of the week.
Are you a trader or a lender? #BeLiquid pic.twitter.com/pUM8ZAH38t
— Liquid (@Liquid_Global) October 17, 2018
Margin trading is a great way to maximize profits, but can also cause substantial loses. Therefore, it requires a lot of caution and experience. In addition, margin traders must pay a fee, which in Liquid’s case amounts to 0.05%.
While usually margin trading involves borrowing money that the brokerage owns, Quoine took a different approach. It offers users the opportunity to provide their personal holdings. Users simply provide the amount of cryptocurrency they want to offer for margin traders.
Later this week we will enable $XRP for margin trading and lending on https://t.co/OR9DJySfgW.
XRP/JPY, XRP/USD, XRP/SGD and XRP/EUR will all be available to margin traders, who can make use of our 25x leverage, while lenders can earn daily interest on their holdings.#BeLiquid pic.twitter.com/yk6YzxvVWJ
— Liquid (@Liquid_Global) October 17, 2018
In exchange, HODLers can earn daily interest on their holdings. The interest amounts to 0.070%. However, 50% of the interest goes to Quoine as a fee. Users can put for lending not just cryptocurrencies, but fiat currencies as well.