On 5th Dec, BTC38 introduced company account verification and 0% transaction fee for these accounts by the end of 2017. Currently individual user need to submit ID number and mobile phone number verification for level 1 or 30,000 RMB monthly deposit limit, hand-held ID photos for level 2 or 500,000 RMB monthly deposit limit and online video authentication for level 3 or 2 million RMB deposit limit. There will be a verification system released in recent days to facilitate corporate account setup, which requires upload of business license, enterprise bank account verification etc. Company users may deposit or withdraw via company’s Alipay and bank account.

Tame Huang, CEO of BTC38 photo credit: BTC38

Tame Huang, CEO of btc38, told 8btc:

The purpose is to activate transaction and enhance order book depth. We believe that corporate accounts have advantage in being a market-maker and enhancing order book depth. With the 0% transaction fee, we hope to promote the market with more corporate users.

All trade pairs on BTC38 are subject to 0.1% transaction fee at the moment with the exception of TMC trade pair at 0.5%. The corporate accounts may enjoy the 0% fee by 31st Dec, 2017. The continuance of such policy is subject to future assessment.

The news soon raised concerns among the community:

Is BTC38 about to fake transaction volumes, too?

Some bashed the new rules :

The new policy is the final resort to rescue themselves. But it’s useless. Traders will go to international exchanges.

They are doomed.

Fermi pointed out:

No matter what btc38 does, they will find it hard to please everyone. As an electronic parts manufacturer, we are forced to cut spending on materials due to heated competition in order to survive. That’s the way of doing business in China. At least Btc38 is making some changes, let’s see some support here.

Some have already talked about registering a company in order to be qualified for the 0% transaction fee.

As one of the few altcoin exchanges that introduce CNY liquidity, BTC38 has been a hotspot for altcoin community to chase after since its founding in June, 2013. Some altcoins saw their record high on BTC38 during the 2013 bubble, especially against CNY.

On 22nd Nov 2016, BTC38 released new rules on adjustment of trade pairs. Some altcoins that used to have two trade pairs on BTC38 is reduced to one trade pair , either against BTC or CNY. After the adjustment, there are 25 CNY trade pairs and 8 BTC trade pairs on BTC38.

The rules are not hard to follow:

1. Based on a weekly summary, the last 3 altcoins with the lowest transaction volume in CNY zone will be labeled with “*”.

2. If one particular coin is on the bottom for the 2nd time, then it will be labeled with double asterisk mark, like “**”.

3. Then the coin will be relocated from CNY to BTC column.

4. Meanwhile, the coin with highest volume against BTC will switch to CNY.

Basically, it’s a swap between the best and the worst altcoin and a race to gain liquidity with CNY. The adjustment will happen every Friday following the weekly summary. The new rules went live on 1st December 2016. The next day, ANC, BEC and DGC were tagged with “*” and HLB had the most transaction volume on the BTC side.

3 altcoins tagged with asterisk mark on BTC38

Chinese bitcoiners would find this familiar if they had trading experience in A share stock market. In 2013, Shanghai Stock Exchange implemented a new policy:

Two kinds of stocks will be traded on the newly launched risk alert board, under the new policies. One is shares carrying “ST” (special treatment) or “*ST” tags, which suffer losses for two consecutive years or more, and the other is stocks that enter delisting procedures.

The effort was to

promote delisting reform and better protect investors’ interests.

BTC38 site was first launched as a crytocurrency news site in June, 2013 and switched to altcoin exchange several months later. The TMC coin was distributed free to all active traders as an incentive to expand user base and transaction. The strategy was very successful and BTC38 soon became a leading player in China. In April 2015, an online mall was brought online to test the e-commerce reception among cryptocurrency community. Meanwhile, the partnership with P2P lending platform was found somehow isolated from the crypto exchange. Users are not allowed to transfer CNY balance to the p2p lending platform.

54 articles were submitted on the writing contest to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of BTC38 in June,2016, which was one the most popular campaigns on 8btc. It’s an important sign of a robust community.

So far other altcoin exchanges like Jubi, Yuanbao and Bter have not followed up.