There’s never a dull week in crypto – if it isn’t the crypto market making headlines, it’s the crypto exchanges themselves. Here are some of the highlights from around the crypto exchange space for the week ending December 15, 2018.

Binance Updates

On Friday, Binance announced that it was adding Circle’s USD-pegged stablecoin – USD Coin (USDC) – as a quote asset in the exchange’s combined Stablecoin Trading Market (USDⓈ). Supported trading pairs include BNB/USDC, BTC/USDC, ETH/USDC, XRP/USDC, EOS/USDC, and XLM/USDC.

Binance Labs’ 10-week incubation program hatched its first batch of blockchain projects last week as well. Of the 500 projects that applied for Season 1 of the program, only eight projects were chosen, with each project receiving $500,000 in seed funding as well as access to Binance Labs’ considerable resources, mentors, and industry leaders.

Other notable Binance updates include the addition of price alerts to the platform’s newly upgraded mobile trading app and the launch of its free cryptocurrency education platform.

Lastly, and in true holiday spirit, Binance has begun its Christmas promo, which runs from December 13 – December 28, 2018. Participants can win Binance swag as well as free BNB.

Coinbase Updates

Although technically not an update from last week, the buzz around Coinbase’s announcement that it is exploring the addition of as many as 30+ new digital assets continues to grow. Just a few of the tokens being evaluated include XRP, Tezos (XTZ), Cardano (ADA), Stellar (XLM), and district0x (DNT).

Coinbase began its Twelve Days of Coinbase holiday promo last week in which the platform unveils new features and updates each day, beginning on December 10 and ending on December 21, 2018. The first six days to date have unveiled the following:

Available in the UK, EU, and now the US, customers can use their crypto balances to purchase gift cards for Uber, Nike, Dominos, Old Navy, Outback, and more through their WeGift program.

To help support more than 100 Venezuelan families in the town of Santa Elena de Uairen, Coinbase donated $10,000 worth of Zcash (ZEC) to GiveCrypto.org that will put $1 USD worth of crypto in the families’ wallets every day for three months. They will be able to purchase food and other basic necessities at a local store that accepts crypto.

Coinbase released a video that explains its vision of how cryptocurrency creates economic freedom.

Coinbase rolled out its new Watchlist feature that allows users to follow specific assets and customize their dashboards.

US customers can now withdraw their cash balances to PayPal – instantly and with zero fees.

To support GiveCrypto.org’s new initiative to provide a basic income to more than 150 Syrian refugees in Greece, Coinbase donated $10,000 worth of Bitcoin.

Other Crypto Exchange Updates

OKEx has changed the ticker symbols of Bitcoin Cash ABC from BCHABC to BCH and Bitcoin Cash SV from BCHSV to BSV. In addition, original BCH futures trading has been terminated.

Coincheck parent company Monex announced that the platform would be opening its crypto trading services to US customers in Q1 2019.

OpenFinance Network (OFN) announced that will be launching the first regulated security token trading platform in the US.

Huobi was granted a full DLT license by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. The license will allow the platform to “store and transmit value belonging to others using blockchain technology.” The crypto exchange also announced its listing of Tezos (XTZ) last week, sparking a 13% boost in the token’s price.

Do you have a crypto exchange update you would like to see included in the next Crypto Exchange News Roundup? Drop us a line and let us know about it!

Did we miss any major updates? What other exchanges would you like to see here? Sound off in the comments below!

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