Poloniex Expands Margin Trading Offering For Non-US Customers

Ethereum Classic (ETC) is now available for margin trading on crypto-to-crypto exchange platform Poloniex for non-US customers. ETC joins other cryptocurrencies already available for margin trading on the platform including ether, dash, dogecoin, litecoin, monero and stellar, all with bitcoin as the base pair.

Margin trading is essentially trading with borrowed funds. When placing a margin order, all of the money used is borrowed from other users offering their funds as peer-to-peer loans. The user’s own funds are used only as collateral for these loans and to settle debts to lenders.

Like other cryptocurrencies available for margin on Poloniex, ETC is now also available for lending, meaning that customers holding ETC can lend it to other customers and earn interest.

ETC is the first cryptocurrency Poloniex has added to margin since Circle acquired the company in 2018 and “won’t be the last, either, because we are working on adding other tokens and base pairs for margin,” it said on Tuesday.  

“We are expanding the tokens available for margin as part of our effort to make Poloniex one of the most innovative exchanges in the world.”

Poloniex removed its margin and lending products for US-based customers in late-2018, stating in October that the changes were part of an ongoing commitment to “ensure that Poloniex complies with regulatory requirements in every jurisdiction.”

The addition of ETC in Poloniex’s margin trading offering builds upon other developments the company has announced in recent weeks including the release of a new version of its mobile trading app, a new, streamlined fee structure, and a major systems upgrade that enhanced performance across wallet functionality, deposits and withdrawals speeds, trade execution speeds, and overall latency.

Circle said in March that in addition to an immediate impact on the efficiency and speed of the exchange, Poloniex’s upgraded infrastructure will enable the platform to scale and lay “the foundation for better performance, new features, more improvements and more support for crypto projects.”

Founded in 2014, Poloniex is a US-based digital asset exchange supporting more than 60 cryptocurrencies and over 120 trading pairs. According to data from Coingecko, Poloniex has a daily trading volume of about US$15 million.