By
Godfrey Benjamin
January 9th, 2024
Straits Financial will be able to accept bitcoin via the partnership with digital bank WB21 Ltd.
Straits Financial LLC has good news for both bitcoin and futures traders. The company that focuses on financial services delivery announced that it will partner with digital bank WB21 Ltd and will indirectly employ the services of bitcoin payment processor BitPay Inc. Straits Financial becomes the first U.S. based Futures Commission Merchant (“FCM”).
To put it bluntly, BitPay is not directly integrated with Straits, it doesn’t officially accept bitcoin deposits. WB21, a partner of Straits, allows its users to fund via bitcoin and then send the WB21 money to their Straits trading account.
Joseph Mazurek, Straits Financial LLC President, comments on the importance of the initiative: “This is a great next step for Straits and the industry. BitPay and WB21 will help customers to easily convert their bitcoin holdings into currencies that can be used to fund their futures trading accounts and will provide the bitcoin community easier access to an alternative suite of investment options.”
“Bitcoin offers one of the fastest, most secure ways for investors to fund trading accounts, and WB21’s real-time cross-currency conversion just makes this a better option for international trading,” says BitPay Chief Commercial Officer Sonny Singh. “We couldn’t be more excited to be working together with Straits Financial to make bitcoin a fixture in futures trading.”
“Using our real-time bitcoin funding and multi-currency banking system, offers a fast and convenient solution for investors to fund their trading accounts at Straits. We are happy to provide the platform and offer Straits Financial our services,” says WB21 CEO Michael Gastauer.
Straits is a boutique brokerage house that offers a full spectrum of derivatives and OTC products, including trade facilitation for physical commodities. The company is headquartered in Singapore while its US branch is a full Clearing Member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), the Commodity Exchange (COMEX), CME Clearport, Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME), New Zealand Exchange (NZX). The cooperation between Straits, WB21 and BitPay will enable bitcoin users trading and managing risks in the multi-trillion dollar commodities markets in products such as energy, precious and base metals, agricultural commodities and stock indexes.
BitPay acts as a partner of one more online payment service provider. Worldcore, that is ranked as Number One Fintech company from Czech Republic, has started accepting bitcoin via BitPay.
According to Worldcore, bitcoin will become a convenient way for customers to get access to banking services without the need for credit cards, banking infrastructure, or currency exchanges. The partnership with BitPay opens Worldcore a possibility to become the first digital banking service that will enable its 7,000+ customers to use the digital currency to top up accounts and prepaid debit cards with industry-leading ATM withdrawal limits of 4,000 Euros per day.