The Rock Trading, a European bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange announced today that after working hard to improve and expand its infrastructure to better handle an increased number of requests, registrations for new users will re-open by the end of February.

To keep more experienced users, The Rock Trading will now charge a 100 EUR entry fee, which includes 90% off trading fees for the first 30 days. Further, select partners will have access to entry codes, which will bypass the 100 EUR fee.

Invitation codes distributed to selected partners will screen new users and make sure they have the basic knowledge to operate.

Noting the charge of 100 EUR for new subscriptions, the team stated:

“Bear in mind that we have grown at a pace of about 400% per year, and lately, we were forced to grow even faster: that is not simple for anyone since it means you need to grow in every sector in the company (IT, Finance, Administration, HR, Support, Legal, etc. etc.) and you need to grow properly, not just in terms of numbers. (And in the meantime we are moving to Italy too …) We came to the conclusion that requests are still higher than our willingness and our ability to grow. Believe me: growing is fascinating, to say the least, but it does not come without risks and pains; as a company with the responsibility to hold users funds we can manage pain, but above all, we must manage risks.”

“For this reason, we came to the conclusion that our best path is to reopen registrations to anyone by the end of February, but we will require paying a subscription entry fee of 100 EUR (fees discount applies for the first 30 days). By starting with an entry fee we hope to keep giving access to this world, but forcing any newcomer to do so only if they really want to and wish to make their due diligence before that (people don’t usually spend money without a reason) The best course of action would have been to make sure those new users know what they are doing, instead of making them pay, but we have not been able to define a proper way to ensure this and — let’s be honest — this is easier for us, quicker and will at least pay our costs in dealing with new users.”