Weeks After Bitcoin’s recent deleveraging. The big South Korean exchange Bithumb has unveiled leverage trading on its global platform for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

The exchange notes that the move is in response to “a spike in crypto services demand,”. The launch of margin by Bithumb Global comes just weeks after the biggest deleveraging event in Bitcoin’s history.

March 13 Crypto crash forces the biggest deleveraging in crypto history

Bithumb’s launch of margin trading comes less than four weeks after the March 12–13 record crash that saw many cryptocurrencies ‘values dropping over 50 percent in less than two days.

Skew’s data published in a Coinbase blog reveals that the crisis has contributed to a historic deleveraging in Bitcoin markets.

Skew reports that approximately $4 billion of active leveraged BTC positions. On Deribit, CME, FTX, Bitfinex, Huobi, Bakkt, OKEx, Binance, Kraken, Bybit and BitMEX were available before the crash combined.

After the crash, open leveraged assets across the 11 markets were below $1 billion— a decline of more than 75%.

Bithumb raises profit margins as crypto-demand surges

Bithumb Global says that with the “global economic downturn coupled. With the global lock-out triggered by the COVID-19 crises” being an immediate danger to global trade. The crypto-industry has “witnessed growing interest from people across the globe.”

The exchange credits the growing interest in crypto to a large number of people seeking “alternative digital assets in times of uncertainty.”

Although Bithumb supports spot trading through 168 pairings for 115 cryptocurrencies and tokens. Margin trading initially started for just two pairings — BTC / USDT and ETH / USDT. For pairings, the overall flexibility is 5x.

The exchange also announced support for cryptocurrency in Indian rupees and the United Arab Emirates dirham, purchased through Visa payments.