Chinese exchange OKCoin will officially enable Ethereum (ETH) deposit and withdrawal services on 22:00, May 31. ETH trading services will be officially available on 12:00, June 1.

OKCoin just released the following statement:

Dear OKCoin users,

OKCoin was founded based on a commitment to providing our users the best product, technology, and trading experience. Over the past few years, we have received frequent requests to launch a variety of digital assets on our exchange. Our stance, as a sophisticated digital asset trading platform that serves millions of users around the world, has always been to be prudent about adding new digital assets that have not been fully tested by the market.

Recently, OKCoin users have taken interest in the development of Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC), and there is an increasing demand for OKCoin to enable ETH and ETC trading. For the past two years, we have been constantly reviewing the viability of listing ETH and ETC based on factors including technical maturity, innovation, market liquidity, and compliance.

Today, we are formally launching ETH on the OKCoin exchange. Ethereum has a current circulation of 90 million, with ETH reaching a market cap in excess of USD 10 billion, and a total hashrate of more than 25K GB. Hundreds of applications are now built on Ethereum and a growing number of applications are using smart contracts run on the Ethereum blockchain.

More than 20 top global financial institutions and technology companies, including JPMorgan Chase, CME Group, BNY Mellon, Thomson Reuters, Microsoft, Intel, and Accenture, have set up the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) to define enterprise-grade applications of Ethereum. China’s Tencent, Zhong An Insurance and other well-known companies are also investigating various applications of blockchain. The United Nations has just launched its first large-scale Ethereum test to distribute humanitarian funds.

Given this opportunity, we implore BTC Core developers and relevant Miners to work together and resolve any outstanding technical issues, activate Segwit, and solve BTC’s scaling issues. Our industry and the history of technology offers us many warnings, whether it’s the IE browser or the Nokia mobile phone. No matter how dominant, how much market share you have, if you do not adopt the latest technology and fail to constantly improve on the core user value proposition, time will pass you by. Ultimately, digital asset exchanges around the world can only advocate for the best technology and aim to provide the best trading experience for our clients.