Singapore-based Bitmax has expanded the scope of its offerings to support the budding DeFI landscape. The exchange announced that starting from the 9th of November, it will begin to integrate Kava’s newly launched money market, Hard protocol, directly. With this new feature, Bitmax believes that its users can capitalize on a uniquely designed yield generating infrastructure enhanced with cross-chain functionalities.
The Hard protocol provides interest generating opportunities for holders of a wide array of cryptocurrencies, including BTC, XRP, BNB, BUSD, KAVA, and USDX. For many of these listed coins, the introduction of the Hard protocol marks the first time they can integrate directly with a fully functioning DeFi service.
Before the said launch date of the Hard protocol integration, Bitmax officially started to support HARD and USDX from the 6th of November at 10 am EST and 11 am EST respectively. On the same day, the USDX pool went live. According to Bitmax, these listings and integrations will help crypto holders access trusted and seamless gateways to the emerging DeFi market.
Centralized Exchanges Incorporate DeFi
It is worth mentioning that Bitmax’s recent expansion to the DeFi landscape is an accurate representation of the prevailing trend of the centralized crypto exchange market. The competitive terrain sees decentralized finance as the latest frontier for growth. As such, exchanges are increasingly adopting services designed to meet the high demand for DeFi yield earning opportunities.
A prime example of the implementation of this growth hack is Binance’s growing presence in the DeFi market. The popular crypto exchange has always leveraged its influence in the crypto industry to great effects. Hence, it is unsurprising that it leads the way in the push for exchange-powered DeFi services. It recently revealed the launch of the Hard protocol on its Launchpool and the listing of the HARD token.
From all indications, Bitmax seems to be towing a similar path by positioning itself as an enabler of DeFi gateways. Although this is the true reflection of the proceedings in the crypto exchange market, Bitmax hopes to excel and establish its dominance by embracing the multi-dimensional capabilities of the Kava ecosystem. The announcement reads:
“For the BitMax team, the journey to this date has been spectacular. The platform is growing in popularity and offers innovative products of its own. Both token offerings – including some very successful ones such as Serum – and integrating DeFi protocols are the top priority at this time. In fact, one can argue BitMax has taken Binance’s example and improved upon wherever possible.”
The document explained further that the exchange, in its quest to evolve, has incorporated the HARD money markets along with this multi-chain functionality:
“One example of improving upon the current example by Binance is by integrating the HARD Protocol. Providing users with access to the world’s first cross-chain money market is a major milestone. HARD money markets provide yield opportunities to holders of BTC, XRP, BNB, and BUSD. More assets will be added to this list over the coming weeks and months.”
Besides, Bitmax is the first exchange in the world to list Kava’s crypto-backed USDX. The stablecoin, launched in June 2020, is one of the vital components of Kava’s lending and yielding infrastructure. Kava provides USDX loans to BTC holders, which they can subsequently use to buy more BTC and set up leveraged positions.
HARD Protocol Impresses
The Hard protocol was launched on the 15th of October, 2020. And ever since then, it has emerged as a timely introduction to the crypto DeFi landscape. In only about three weeks of operation, the protocol has distributed over $1 million worth of rewards and generated over $9 million TVL. Perhaps, this success is down to the protocol’s ability to support a broad range of popular and established coins. The protocol’s cross-chain feature exposes it to the vast Bitcoin community that has previously struggled to initiate Bitcoin-based DeFi. Before now, BTC holders often had to scale several hurdles to capitalize on yield farming opportunities.
Furthermore, both Hard protocol and Kava are currently ranked in the top 50 of DeFi projects with the highest TVL. According to the data from DeFi Llama, Kava is the 23rd most valuable DeFi protocol while Hard sits in the 31st position.
Disclaimer: Coinspeaker is committed to providing unbiased and transparent reporting. This article aims to deliver accurate and timely information but should not be taken as financial or investment advice. Since market conditions can change rapidly, we encourage you to verify information on your own and consult with a professional before making any decisions based on this content.
Founder and editor at BTC PEERS. Andrey writes about financial experiments, DeFi, cryptocurrency, and blockchain.