When a new cryptocurrency exchange goes live, generally, you would expect it to list Bitcoin as its first cryptocurrency, generally alongside USD, GBP and the EURO. The reason for this is pretty clear, in that Bitcoin has a market dominance of over 35% and of course, Bitcoin tends to have a significantly higher trading volume than the rest of the currencies on the market. In order to justify this statement, let’s compare the top two traded currencies, at the time of writing. Bitcoin (in first place) comes in with a trading volume of $4,957,530,000.00, Tether (in second place) comes in with a trading volume of $2,814,990,000.00, just over half the trading volume of Bitcoin. Today, SBI Virtual Currencies of Japan, have launched Japan’s first ever, bank-backed cryptocurrency exchange, which is listing Ripple XRP as its first tradable currency. The exchange, called VCTRADE is now live to around 20,000 customers who managed to pre-register for the launch of the exchange. Of course, VCTRADE do aim to open up their doors to the general public, however for now, the launch is being kept on a smaller scale, most probably to allow the team to focus on ironing out any creases so to speak, before the exchange reaches the mainstream. With this, VCTRADE will also be adding Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash to the exchange in good time. There’s a few things to consider regarding Ripple XRP specifically here. Firstly, as it stands, 20,000 new customers now have a new point of contact through which they can begin to trade and invest in XRP. Moreover, as VCTRADE grows within Japan, some estimated 3.5 Million investors and traders will have another point of access to Ripple XRP engagement, within an exchange that boasts enhanced security, in line with Japanese cryptocurrency exchange regulations. Moreover, SBI Holdings, the owners of SBI Virtual Currencies are of course a financial services bank, meaning that this exchange is backed by real financial authority, something that will really give XRP a boost, as VCTRADE expands. Ripple XRP has also already responded well to this news, at the time of writing Ripple XRP is valued at $0.66, up 0.95%. In a market with a majority downwards trend, even this slight upward movement should be seen as positive, as, for the first time in quite a while, Ripple XRP begins to make ground back up, towards $0.70. This is positive news for Ripple, SBI Holdings and for the crypto-sphere in Japan in general. As VCTRADE grows, we should expect it to become a prolific figure on the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange scene, and, possibly, a prolific cryptocurrency exchange amongst the worlds exchange leaders soon enough.