Bitcoin trading volume at Winklevoss twin’s exchange Gemini has surged more than 40,000% in the three weeks since its launch.
Gemini, a bitcoin exchange set up by the Winklevoss twins, has seen its trading volumes grow rapidly, according to tracker website Bitcoinity.org.
Gemini has completed 11,176 trades in the last three weeks. From 31 trades on the first day, the company managed to complete over 2 thousand during last Friday’s session.
Despite the rapid increase in trading volume, Gemini still lags behind the major players in the sector. For instance, according to bitcoinity.org, during the same period, Bitstamp completed 686,712 trades and Bitfinex completed 594,747 trades. The Chinese exchange OKCoin traded over 1 million Bitcoins on Friday.
At the same time, bitcointy.org admits that Gemini ranks number 11 in a list of top 21 Bitcoin exchanges. The Bitcoin exchanges that rank better than Gemini include Bitfinex, Bitstamp, Coinbase, Bit-x and itBit.
The Winklevoss twins became famous after suing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, claiming that he stole their idea.
Gemini is available to clients in 26 states. It is limited because of the company being suffered long delays obtaining BitLicense in New York.
“We just don’t feel comfortable launching and don’t feel it’s right to our customer base without meeting whatever bar is set by regulators. We just don’t think it’s fair to bring people onto a platform before we’ve gone through that process,” said Cameron Winklevoss according to Vice Media.
“I think that process exists for a reason, to protect consumers and our future customers, and make sure best practice and policies are involved. So that’s our philosophy. That’s sort of what we’re doing, and that doesn’t change based on other people’s actions or behaviors. That’s been our plan and mission,” he added.
According to the Winklewoss twins, the customers’ Bitcoins are held offline, in an air-gapped vaulted storage system. Only a small portion of Bitcoins are held in the online wallet known as the “hot wallet.”
They believe their exchange will help investors get involved with the digital currency safely and legally. “[W]e take licensing and compliance very seriously and think that asking for permission, rather than forgiveness is the right approach in this case — and we think our customers will agree,” they state.
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