When two-man team from China launched a Bitcoin exchange in Shangai, they certainly didn’t have US markets on their mind. What launched as a Yuan denominated exchange, in an unregulated environment, is now all set to trade with BTC USD. We are talking about BTC China, currently the longest running Bitcoin exchange. With heavy Chinese involvement, it has been the highest in terms of volume and the oldest in terms of running exchanges. Let’s look into its journey and how BTCC got to US Markets:

The History and the growth:

BTC China was one of three major exchanges started in the summer of 2011. Its contemporaries included Slovenian Bitstamp and the Russian BTC-E. Around that time, MtGox in Japan had the highest volumes in bitcoin market for USD trades. The exchange grew quickly in 2012, despite the close monitoring of Chinese officials. Chinese government and Central bank were starting to enforce threatening steps for the growth of Bitcoin. Despite the negativity, the platform being China’s only exchange for trading Yuan for bitcoins garnered positive press coverage on national television. After the fall of MtGox, the exchange has seen steady increase in volumes which was later pushed up by imposition of capital controls in 2015.

Operating structure:

BTC China has been in business since 2011 building an effective customer relationship. While the company offers services to almost every country in the world, 16 countries are excluded. These include the typical outsiders like Iran, Cuba, and North Korea. Accompanying them are residents in the US states of New Hampshire, North Carolina, and New York. Anyone can sign up with a photo of their passport, a selfie of themselves holding the passport. They would also need a third form of identification that can be a driver’s licenses or utility bill.

Benefits over traditional exchanges:

The exchange’s fee structure might really attractive for US Dollar traders. Buyers pay only 0.2 percent of a trade, with a minimum of one penny. This is on par with Bitfinex and better than Bitstamp’s 0.25 percent. Meanwhile, sellers can earn money on each trade, receiving a rebate of 0.05 percent for adding liquidity to the board. This beats both Bitfinex and Bitstamp which still charge money to sellers.

The new real-time exchange, currently in beta, offers Market, Limit, Stop, and One Cancels the Other (OCO) orders for spot trading. The Pro trading platform also provides 25x margin trading. The company now also offers a few other bitcoin services, including a bitcoin wallet, physical bitcoins, and a bitcoin mining pools. This would certainly make it very lucrative option for all the US based traders.