Bitfinex has announced it is adding ether to its trading options. The exchange intends to include margin trading and shorting in ether into its range of services. The leverage ratio remains undisclosed.

The exchange platform has started trading the ETH/USD and ETH/BTC pairs on Monday, 14 March, at noon GMT. Bitfinex also considers adding the ETH/EUR pair to the trading options. According to the company’s press release, the customers were able to deposit ether to Bitfinex accounts in advance.

The exchange does not reveal the leverage ratio for ether trading, but points out that due to relatively higher volatility of ether the leverage size will be smaller than for bitcoin. To promote the new currency trading, Bitfinex offers temporary fees reduction:

“Through the end of March, it will be free to add liquidity (market maker) and 20bps to remove liquidity (market taker).”

The decision to include new cryptocurrency was made in response to customers’ request and due to growing volumes of ether trading on other exchange platforms, Bitfinex says in the statement. The company plans to enhance its product services with margin trading and short positions in ether. Bitfinex is ready to introduce these options within a week after the trading starts, but only in case if there is significant order book depth and sufficient amount of traded cryptocurrency.

“That will depend on the community’s support for Ether trading on our platform as Bitfinex itself is not a market participant in its own markets.”

Ether is a token used in the “smart contracts” system Ethereum. Its value has been rapidly growing in recent months. By market capitalisation it now occupies the second place in the rating after bitcoin, outperforming both ripple and litecoin. Currently, the market capitalisation of ether has exceeded $1 bln, comparing to $640 mln in the beginning of March and only $72 mln early in January 2016. For comparison, as of now the estimated bitcoin capitalisation is about $6.5 bln. Ether is trading at $13.30 per coin, its price having jumped up by 15% since Saturday and more than 13 times since the beginning of the year.

Elena Platonova