LINE Announces a Big Bang Launch of Its Crypto Exchange BITMAX for 80 Million Users

18. Sep 2019 Posted by Akolkar B on News

Japan’s most-popular messaging application LINE made a big bang announcement on Tuesday, September 17, about the launch of its BITMAX cryptocurrency exchange.

Having received the regulatory go-ahead, LINE will makes the BTIMAX exchange available to its 80 million users in the Japanese market. The exchange is already live and available for trading five major cryptocurrencies: bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), ripple (XRP), bitcoin cash (BCH) and litecoin (LTC).

To make it easy for users to trade, the service has been made first available on the LINE mobile app for Android devices. Moreover, it is integrated with company’s own LINE Pay platform for easy crypto-to-yen conversion and vice versa.

At present, LINE has more than 164 million global monthly active users of which 50% i.e. 81 million are only from Japan. However, the BITMAX crypto exchange will be available only in the Japanese market and has no charges on crypto trading facility. However, other facilities like deposits and withdrawal draws a basic charge of 108 yen.

Following all the rules mandated by the Japanese regulators, LINE has strict KYC process for users willing to join BITMAX. However, account registration on the platform can be done just over an app with the help of a photographic capture and an ID card. Besides, one also needs to have a registered bank account.

To ensure robust security for its users, LINE will make use of a cold storage wallet developed by BitGo. The announcement reads: “As part of cryptocurrency security measures, BITMAX uses the high-security wallet from BitGo Inc., a US-based provider of world-class technologies. BITMAX also clearly separates and manages customer assets from the company's own, as well as stores cryptocurrencies in a cold wallet. A dedicated team has been especially created to manage the cold wallet itself, as part of LINE's commitment to providing the most reliable and secure service possible”.

Today’s announcement by LINE has also brought some surge in the crypto market. The top four performing cryptocurrencies on WorldCoinIndex are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple.

While Bitcoin price remains mostly stable, the Ethereum price surged 4%, Litecoin price surged 7% and Ripple (XRP) has surged over 10%.