Europe-based international exchange WhiteBIT announced it would support Bitcoin SV (BSV). The move sees the introduction of three new BSV-fiat trading pairs, including the first Russian Ruble (BSV/RUB) option.
WhiteBIT operates under full compliance with current E.U. regulations and serves customers mainly in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The exchange also offers links to a number of payment/transfer gateways popular in the region including Advcash, Qiwi, Visa/MasterCard, Perfect Money, Interkassa, and Yandex Money.
Speaking to CoinGeek, CSO Artem Gordadze and Project Relations Manager Andrew Kovalenko said the team are big believers in Bitcoin SV, saying it is “fundamentally clear” BSV can deliver on its promises. Interest in the CIS region, they added, had grown thanks to the recent “halving” event. They are now looking forward to adding more services and partnerships, and possibly expanding into more countries over the coming years.
Interview with Artem Gordadze and Andrew Kovalenko from WhiteBIT
Which countries are you licensed to serve? Are there any major countries you don’t serve?
We’re doing our best to open up WhiteBIT to people from all over the world, but of course, as we’re staying compliant with the current EU regulations that are in place, there are several countries and regions where we cannot provide services. Those are mostly FATF-blacklisted countries. The full list is available on our website.
The U.S.A. of course is a big market that we’re currently working hard to enter. Our legal department is busy with obtaining the U.S. Money Transmitter licenses that would allow us to do this. It’s coming approximately in Q2-Q3 2020.
Where are you based?
The majority of our team is located in Kharkiv, Ukraine. It’s a beautiful country with a huge amount of people who are uniquely talented in development—that has allowed us to gather probably the strongest team in the CIS region—over 100 skilled professionals.
Can you take SEPA transfers?
We cannot. However, work is being done on providing our users with an alternative solution that would be transparent and compliant with the EU regulations. We will announce it later this year—so stay tuned!
What do you like about BSV?
The most important thing that we deeply appreciate and respect in BSV is, primarily, the “SV”—the ideology following the original vision of Bitcoin, proposed by Satoshi Nakamoto years ago in his whitepaper. It is fundamentally clear that BSV is ready to accept and overcome any challenges it faces, which definitely reflects on the asset’s growing popularity, as well as on the price charts!
Was there a lot of user demand for BSV?
There was. Our marketing department is constantly conducting analyses of the current situation in the market to pinpoint where exactly the public interest is at a certain point. The halving of BSV of April 10th certainly did generate more of the user interest, but I think it’s safe to say that even apart from that there was reasonable demand for it.
We at WhiteBIT are striving to select the best projects to list on our exchange. For the last couple of years we’ve been working on creating the “base”—all the necessary and advanced functions and features that would make a user’s experience on our exchange as positive as possible. Starting from December 2019, we’ve been following the strategy of a market expansion, a crucial part of which is partnering with the key market players in our region, as well as around the world. Along with Dash, Tron, BNB, Matic and other major assets, BSV was definitely on the list.
Do many people know about BSV in the CIS region?
Our decision to list BSV certainly came from the understanding that a lot of people in Europe and the CIS know and care about it. This was also the main reason for our decision to open local fiat pairs for BSV, which are EUR, USD, and RUB.
What KYC/AML requirements do you have for new accounts?
We are working under the EU jurisdiction, which obliges us to stay compliant with 5AMLD—a directive by the EU government that requests digital currency exchanges to KYC-verify their users in order to perform both deposits and withdrawals. However, we’re constantly working on making the KYC process as easy and user-friendly as possible.
Did you face any hurdles in setting up a BSV/RUB trading pair and operating in the markets you do?
Not really—over the months we have been able to partner with a huge amount of fiat service providers and merchants, which now allows us to launch new fiat markets with relative ease. Being focused on the CIS region, a big chunk of our users come from countries like Russia and Ukraine. So, more pairs with local fiat including Ruble is definitely something we like to see. Fortunately, our vision here coincided with that of the BSV team, so here we are.
How is WhiteBIT better than its competitors?
To be honest, we do not see WhiteBIT having any direct competitors in the region. There are some companies, but their approach to doing business, as well as their model, is fundamentally different from ours.
The important thing for people in our region (and I think it’s true for the entire world as well) is to have a reliable exchange, focused on the security and safety of the users, which they can trust. Someone real, not just another faceless megacorporation. Someone who plays by the rules, stays compliant and cares deeply about the positive experience of the users. And that’s what WhiteBIT was made to be.
We are a leading European exchange that focuses on traders, but also on people who are not yet very well familiar with digital currency. We believe it to be our mission to introduce digital currencies to them, thus bringing about the mass adoption which we all strive for.
From the technical point of view, we are full of ideas. Along with the features that are already available, margin trading is coming very soon, followed closely by a Futures platform, a P2P platform and more. The sky’s the limit: having good expertise and a network of strategic partners, we have many exciting collaborations down the pipeline.
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