Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini going international with launch in Canada

Gemini, the New York-based cryptocurrency exchange run by entrepreneurial brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, has opened for business in Canada.

The expansion is just the start of Gemini’s global expansion, wrote Cameron Winklevoss in a corporate blog post published Monday. His twin brother, Tyler, told Bloomberg that within days the exchange will introduce in another, yet unnamed, foreign country.

“Our goal is to be a global digital asset exchange,” he said. “How quickly we take the exchange globally is a question sometimes of regulation, and what’s on our development road map.”

Registered customers in Canada can trade bitcoin and ether on Gemini’s ETH/BTC book, said the blog post. The exchange will later open its USD order books to its Canadian clients as well.

“We decided to open first with the bitcoin and ether order book,” said Tyler Winkelvoss to Reuters, noting that no regulatory approval was required to operate in Canada. “We think there’s great demand for that; there are a lot of people who own bitcoin, and they don’t have a space place to store them.”

In early May, Gemini was granted a license to trade ether by the New York Department of Financial Services, making it the first licensed ether exchange in the world. Trading volume on the exchange since it started supporting ether has risen steadily, Winklevoss said to Reuters.

“Over the last 30 days, we have traded approximately $30 million in notional value of both bitcoin and ether,” he said.

Logo courtesy of Gemini