China remains the major player in the bitcoin market. Three of the biggest Chinese digital currency exchanges dominate the sector globally, with BTCChina, OKCoin, and Huobi market shares reaching 33.01%, 32.38%, and 14.78% respectively, according to data collected by bitcoinity.org over the last month.
BTCC
The Shanghai-based BTCC, which trades in Chinese yuan, is one of the world’s largest bitcoin exchanges by trading volume. In the autumn of 2014, it reached a peak of 48% of the global bitcoin trading market. Founded in 2011, the exchange developed into a full-fledged bitcoin service platform with a payment service and an integrated mining feature.
The company saw sharp growth in 2013, when Bobby Lee, the current CEO, joined the startup and attracted large investments of $5 million from Lightspeed China Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Bobby Lee brought to the startup his own investments and his expertise as a Stanford graduate. By November 2013, BTC China had become the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, overtaking Bitstamp and MtGox.
The exchange supports three trading currency pairs: BTC/CNY, LTC/CNY, and LTC/BTC. Since last July, users can make deposits and withdrawals in USD, HKD, and CNY. The exchange has had its own mobile wallet since June 2014. BTC China launched a new trading platform, MrGekko, that will enable users to combine orders for multiple exchanges in one place through their BTCChina account.
OKCoin
OKCoin is based in Beijing and has operated since July 2013 when the startup was founded by Star Xu, CEO, supported by an early investment of $1 million from Tim Draper and Venture Lab. The company raised $10 million from venture capital firms Ceyuan and Mandra Capital about a year ago. The website team currently has more than 70 employees.
The OKCoin trading platform reportedly has around 100,000 registered users. Trading fees start from 0.2% and can be lower depending on the user’s trading volume over a 30-day period. The startup has a Chinese counterpart, OKCoin.cn, focused on the local market. The two platforms are not linked and users need to register on them separately.
OKCoin was the world’s leading exchange by trading volume last May. In addition to trading digital currencies (bitcoin and litecoin) and fiat currencies (US dollars and Chinese yuan), the OKCoin platform offers its users a variety of financial tools such as margin and futures trading, peer-to-peer lending, a payment platform, and a multisig wallet. The company has recently introduced so-called ‘Superwallets’, a new system built on top of the bitcoin protocol.
Huobi
Huobi, the last of the ‘Big Three’, was founded in September 2013 by the Chinese entrepreneur Leon Li, who is now the company’s CEO. The platform trades bitcoin and litecoin for Chinese yuan and the company’s website is only translated into English in parts. Huobi has experienced dramatic growth in trading volume over the first year of operations. The company claims to have reached a record amount of 380,000 BTC in volume trading per day on February 25, 2014.
Over the last year, Huobi has diversified the range of services and products. The Hong-Kong-based BItVC, Huobi’s subsidiary margin trading platform, has been on the market since last summer. Other products offered by Huobi include the multi-signature Quickwallet, Yubibao service for daily interest payments, and DigCoin, a mining-related investment product.
The firm also owns the USD/BTC/LTC trading platform BitYes, targeted at international users. Both OKCoin and Huobi have expressed their desire to expand overseas to attract more customers abroad.
Aliona Chepel
