The xRapid enabled exchange, SBI VC Trade, is live. The exchange, with the backing of SBI Group, will focus on providing liquidity for XRP/JPY through xRapid once banks begin accepting the coin for their cross-border settlements. SBI will, therefore, start spot trading today to commence its operations.
This is obviously a significant day for the XRP community. With SBI VC Trade now active with 25 participating banks, excitement is palpable. Of these, eight banks are connected with Ripple via an API platform. The exchange will also use the MoneyTap application to facilitate this process. Already, five banks have officially integrated, making the total number of banks participating in the aforementioned 25.
SBI exchange is an offshoot of Japanese financial company SBI holdings. The firm has a keen interest in branching out into digital asset business. Yoshitaka Kitao, the SBI Holdings CEO, views the recovery of crypto markets in 2019 as almost complete. As such, this company can successfully leverage its infrastructure to participate in xRapid growth.
That said, XRP will not be the sole trading pair on offer. This is because investors will have not only XRP / Yen but also BTC / Yen and ETH / Yen trading pairs.
What Is Spot Trading?
Spot trading is a common fixture in cryptocurrency trading. It essentially refers to instantaneous trading of virtual currencies. Simply, it is the opposite of trading in futures/options and other derivatives.
Spot trading is more representative of the actual “underlying” coin market instead of paper representations of value common in Derivative trading. That said, spot trading is definitely popular, and the direct purchase and delivery of cryptocurrency at spot price is the lifeblood of most digital currencies.
Accordingly, the new exchange will also boost volumes of supported coins through spot trading. Going forward, participating banks can use XRP as a liquidity tool and settle cross-border settlements seamlessly using xRapid.
Room for SBI VC Trade exchange
The SBI Ripple Asia consortium has an impressive 61 banks. This means that the MoneyTap will soon serve an increased number of banks. If this comes to pass, the majority of banks will be able to leverage the XRP coin in their operations.
As such, the exchange has enormous potential on account of these strategic partnerships. This is because Japan has a sizeable banking sector with popular crypto popular within the nation. In the coming months and years, the SBI exchange can grow exponentially and permeate to other sectors.
Similarly, XRP is showing its strongest signal yet that it can become truly mainstream crypto. Even in the wake of Libra coin development plans, it still remains the best poised to gain widespread adoption. Moreover, banks can easily integrate the coin in quick cross border settlements.
At the moment though, this launch is a significant milestone for both SBI and xRapid. The fact that SBI is a large and connected financial institution excellently opens up the Japanese market. The competition in this industry is always stiff and having such a great partner is great news.
Moving forward, the SBI VC trade will enable close to 20 million people to access XRP easily. If anything, this is a huge opening and will be fantastic for XRP in the medium to long term. Furthermore, SBI VC Trade will add the much-needed liquidity to this burgeoning market and improve crypto trading overall.
