As the cryptocurrency sector continues the rapid development begun last year, more startups and crypto exchanges have been opening. One new crypto exchange that recently launched is UPcoin, which officially opened live trading yesterday.
UPcoin first began marketing its exchange after the new year. The company posted advertisements on Bitcointalk.org, Reddit, Twitter (NYSE: TWTR), Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), and Telegram. In particular, the company touted its promotion of $500 worth of trading fees to the first 10,000 people who signed up early. It also has a referral system whereby users receive half of the trading fees generated by referrals. Though many in the crypto community were skeptical at first, enough people worldwide signed up for UPcoin to be able to proceed to beta testing of its trading platform. The company promotes itself as "the first advanced cryptocurrency exchange." After a few weeks of beta testing and reconfiguration, the exchange opened for real trading on April 23.
UPcoin currently supports deposits of 29 cryptocurrencies in its exchange wallet and lists nearly 100 trading pairs on its exchange. Supported coins include the majors as well as popular altcoins like Tron (TRX), Dentacoin (DCN), and OmiseGO (OMG). Though UPcoin currently does not support fiat currency deposits, they plan to add fiat trading and institute Know-Your-Customer (KYC) policies in the next quarter.
UPcoin seems to have reasonable trading fees. Its advertised maker fee is 0.1%, and its taker fee is 0.2%. Both fees are below average for crypto exchanges, though more established exchanges like GDAX offer discounts for higher trade volume. UPcoin also enforces reasonable minimum limits of 0.01 Ether (ETH) for deposits and 0.003 ETH for withdrawals. To date, Upcoin's most liquid trading pairs are TRX/ETH with volume of 9.44 ETH and DCN/ETH with volume of 1.19 ETH. The rest of its trading pairs have little to no volume so far.
The website interface is clean and easy to understand. Its charts are supported by TradingView, and the order book is readable. The order form used to place orders is simple, showing options for price, amount, total, and fees. UPcoin allows both market and limit orders. For sell orders, it allows stop loss and take profit options. Open positions and order history are shown at the bottom of the page, along with the number of users online. Finally, UPcoin states it is working on an application programming interface (API) so that users can export keys to trade through external websites in the future.
Ultimately, whether UPcoin succeeds or fails depends on user demand. First, UPcoin needs to be transparent about its team members and funding. Second, it needs to keep aggressively marketing its platform. Third, users will need to drastically increase volume to provide liquidity for new traders. Fourth, UPcoin should strive for compliance with financial regulations, as fiat offerings will attract many new users. UPcoin is still very young, so it has time to develop into a competitive and advanced exchange.
The author does not hold any positions in any of the securities above.