The CEO of Bittrex, Bill Shihara, announced that Bittrex will provide the facility for a number of its institutional investors to acquire cryptocurrency with US Dollars but only within a few US states.
To date, the Bittrex cryptocurrency exchange platform has only permitted exchanges between cryptocurrencies, without the possibility of trading in fiat money. To make this new service a reality, they concluded a banking deal with Signature Bank, a New York-based bank, that will be in charge of holding the company’s funds in USD.
As Bill Shihara informed on a Bloomberg interview he held on May 31st, he considers this settlement to be more than just a vow of trust to Bittrex, namely, a vote of confidence towards cryptocurrency.
It’s not just about banks being able to trust Bittrex. It’s about banks being able to rely on cryptocurrency in general. And I think this is really proving that cryptocurrency is just around the corner in terms of mass adoption.
Bill Shihara, the Bittrex CEO
Shihara believes that the new agreement with Signature Bank will attract more institutional investors the Bittrex cryptocurrency exchange platform
Shihara said the bank’s openness to partnering with Bittrex is not just an excellent chance to draw new institutional investors but is also a major milestone in upgrading the cryptocurrency exchange platform’s security protocols.
They want to make sure we have robust AML/KYC processes, that we have the right controls on our finances. They do background checks and everything.
Bill Shihara, the Bittrex CEO
The CEO also stated that Bittrex intended to provide USD transactions for a number of Bittrex clients since early February but they opted to wait until everything was perfectly planned and now since they dealt with Signature Bank from New York, the cryptocurrency exchange platform was able to introduce UDS transactions, a decision which is considered to attract more and more institutional investors.
Shihara had also indicated that because of the customers they handle, only institutional investors will be eligible for this type of transaction.
