Winklevoss Twins' Gemini Crypto Exchange Gets Regulatory Green Light for Litecoin Trading

Published at: Oct. 12, 2018

U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, owned by the Winklevoss twins, has sealed regulatory approval to add Litecoin (LTC) custody and trading. The news comes from an official Medium blog post published Friday, Oct. 12.

Gemini’s vice president of engineering, Eric Winer, informs Gemini traders that they can begin depositing Litecoin into their exchange accounts as of 9:30 am EDT Saturday, Oct. 13. Litecoin trading will reportedly go live Tuesday, October 16th at 9:30 am EDT.

The coin is set to be the fourth crypto supported on the platform, alongside Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Zcash (ZEC). Consequently, LTC trading pairs will be available against all three cryptos, as well as against the U.S. dollar.

Winer’s post underscores Gemini’s thoroughgoing “banking compliance and fiduciary obligations” under oversight from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). It notes that Litecoin trading support comes as the result of close cooperation with the watchdog, and that the exchange continues to expand with a “security-first” approach.

Lastly, the post reveals that support for Bitcoin Cash (BCH) had also been slated for today. However, due to high levels of “uncertainty” within the Bitcoin Cash community about “one or more possible hard forks” planned for mid-November, Gemini has decided to delay its support of the asset:

“Some of [the] forks [currently under discussion] lack the replay protection feature that would be required for Gemini to safely support Bitcoin Cash. Because of this situation, we are delaying our launch of Bitcoin Cash deposits, withdrawals, and trading until late November, after the forks have passed and we can evaluate the health of the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem.”

Earlier this month, Gemini announced it had secured insurance coverage for custodied digital assets from lending services firm Aon, which will complement its already available Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) coverage for U.S. dollar deposits.

The Winklevoss twins have also recently sealed the approval of the NYDFS to launch their own U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, the Gemini dollar, the same day as U.S. Trust company Paxos announced its own NYDFS-approved stablecoin.

Shortly after the news, the brothers reportedly started to hire advisors to oversee Gemini’s potential expansion to the U.K. market.

As of press time, Gemini is ranked the world’s 38th largest crypto exchange by CoinMarketCap, seeing over $34 million in daily traded volumes.

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