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Winklevoss twins’ Gemini Bitcoin exchange opens up shop in the U.K.
The Winklevoss twins want to conquer the Bitcoin world, and in this case, they’ve set their sites across the Atlantic.
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, probably best known for having the idea for Facebook taken from them by Mark Zuckerberg, have expanded their Gemini Trust Bitcoin exchange with a new office in the United Kingdom.
The London branch of Gemini, like its offices in the United States and Canada, offers trading in both Bitcoin and Ether.
Gemini has not received regulatory approval for the new office, however, that’s not due to an oversight versus it not being required.
“The U.K. FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) has made it clear that they’re not regulating digital assets at the moment,” Tyler Winklevoss told Forbes in an interview. “That said, the second that there’s clarity that we have to file something, we will be the first company to file our paperwork.”
Initially, U.K. citizens will only be able to buy Bitcoin with Ether and vice versa, however eventually Gemini plans to add support for trading Bitcoin and Ether with U.S. dollars.
Growth
Since launching in October 2015 Gemini has steadily grown, and while it’s still not one of the bigger players in the space quite yet, it is one of the few that is legally registered and properly backed.
The exchange is said to be rapidly approaching $100 million a month in trade.
“Our onboarding queue is huge, it’s continued to grow … we have only been operational for about eight months now … each month has increased growth better than the next,” Winklevoss told CNBC. “This month we are already on track to do … a trading volume of around $100 million of U.S. dollar notional value of both Bitcoin and Ether … We are really young and it’s a really new space and it’s just the beginning but we are really encouraged with the growth and the way things have been going.”
The announcement comes at an interesting time for both Bitcoin and Ether; Bitcoin has surged to new 2 year highs off the back of demand out of China, while Ether is suffering a crisis of confidence following the theft of the equivalent of $55 million from Ethereum DAO last week.
What companies such as Gemini do offer is credibility and stability for the market as a whole, while opening doors to new investors, something that should be welcomed by the Bitcoin community as a whole.
Image credit: techcrunch/Flickr/CC by 2.0
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