Kraken has added Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Ripple (XRP) to Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Augur (REP), Monero (XMR), and Tether (USDT) bringing its margin trading offering to a total of eight cryptocurrencies.
Margin trading of all eight will be available on all of Kraken’s platforms. The latter site boasts an improved user interface and integrated charts and tools as well as supporting mobile trading.
Kraken’s news release adds:
Please note that BCH and XRP are not collateral currencies. This means you cannot open margin positions against the value of your BCH or XRP balances.
Exchange users are advised to keep balances of collateral currencies while trading and to be careful when trading collateral currencies into BCH and XRP with margin positions open, as account equity will be reduced.
Kraken then steps into the advantages of margin trading:
Margin trading allows you to leverage your account for greater profits, while also assuming greater risk.
Whilst also warning of the risks of greater losses and that margin positions can be forcibly closed if losses are great in order to protect leveraged funds.
“This means that you may be forced to take a large loss on a trade rather than having the option to try and wait for a more favorable price.”
Kraken points to its own margin trading guides and the heightened risk does mean that inexperienced traders should research the trading option thoroughly.
We have enabled margin trading for Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Ripple (XRP)! The addition expands our margin offering to 8 assets. Read more on our blog: https://t.co/DSBaMBdOR7
— Kraken Exchange (@krakenfx) December 29, 2018
In June 2018 Korea judged Coinone’s margin trading to be illegal gambling. In October Poloniex announced it was removing margin products for U.S customers to remain regulatory compliant and Japan is still toying with capping cryptocurrency margin trading.
Kraken itself hit the news this September when a New York State Attorney referred Kraken, as well as Binance and Gate.io, to the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) for potential violation of New York’s virtual currency regulations. Kraken’s CEO, Jesse Powell, was critical of New York’s “controlling” behavior and hadn’t returned a questionnaire that was part of the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) report.
According to CoinMarketCap, Kraken is currently the 27th cryptocurrency exchange by adjusted trading volume.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
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