This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy. Please share your thoughts on the matter at this article's entry on the Articles for deletion page. |
Type of site | bitcoin |
---|---|
Available in | 40 countries |
Founded | 2013 |
Headquarters | London |
Products | bitcoin exchange, bitcoin wallet service and bitcoin API. |
URL | www |
Users | 3.5 million |
LUNO (formerly BitX [1] ) is a cryptocurrency exchange headquartered in London [2] [3] [4]
Luno facilitates bitcoin and cryptocurrency storage and transactions such as buying, selling and paying through their wallet services. They also operate exchanges between traditional currencies and bitcoin. [5]
Luno was founded in 2013 and the exchange was set up by Timothy Stranex and Marcus Swanepoel, who are now CTO and CEO respectively. [6] Stranex is a BSc graduate from the University of Cape Town. He began his career as a software engineer at Google in Switzerland. He worked on Google Maps during his four years at the company, while also completing an MSc in theoretical physics from the University of Zürich. [7]
A South African company was one of Luno's earliest clients. The company established its operations in Cape Town to accommodate the client, and quickly grew from there. “[However], we quickly realised two things: one, the banks were going to be moving very slow in this space; and two, there was a lot of misconceptions around what the technology could or could not do." [8]
Luno and PayFast facilitated one of the first crypto-currency integrations into a payment processor in the world. [9]
In 2016, Luno took part in the FCA Sandbox programme. This allows businesses to test financial products with regulatory supervision. [10]
In September 2017, Luno raised $9 million in order to introduce its bitcoin wallet, exchange and services in Europe. [11]
Since November 2017, Luno has also supported ethereum. [12]
At the start of 2018, Luno announced they had reached nearly 2 million customers and processed over $5 billion. [8] In May of 2020, they announced that this had reached 4 million customers. [13] They are pro-regulation. [14]
In April 2018, Luno registered with the bank Negara Malaysia as a reporting body for the digital currencies. [15]
In March 2020, Luno added XRP to their exchange, citing customer demand for the third largest cryptocurrency by market cap as the reason for the listing.[ citation needed ] In May, Luno added Litecoin to their exchange. [16]
eToro is a social trading and multi-asset brokerage company that focuses on providing financial and copy trading services. It has registered offices in Cyprus, Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. In 2018, the company’s value was $800 million.
Digital currency is a balance or a record stored in a distributed database on the Internet, in an electronic computer database, within digital files or within a stored-value card. Examples of digital currencies include cryptocurrencies, virtual currencies, central bank digital currencies and e-Cash.
A cryptocurrency exchange, or a digital currency exchange (DCE), is a business that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for other assets, such as conventional fiat money or other digital currencies. A cryptocurrency exchange can be a market maker that typically takes the bid–ask spreads as a transaction commission for is service or, as a matching platform, simply charges fees.
A cryptocurrency is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange wherein individual coin ownership records are stored in a ledger existing in a form of computerized database using strong cryptography to secure transaction records, to control the creation of additional coins, and to verify the transfer of coin ownership. It typically does not exist in physical form and is typically not issued by a central authority. Cryptocurrencies typically use decentralized control as opposed to centralized digital currency and central banking systems. When a cryptocurrency is minted or created prior to issuance or issued by a single issuer, it is generally considered centralized. When implemented with decentralized control, each cryptocurrency works through distributed ledger technology, typically a blockchain, that serves as a public financial transaction database.
Coinbase is a digital currency exchange headquartered in San Francisco, California. They broker exchanges of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Tezos, and many others, with fiat currencies in approximately 32 countries, and bitcoin transactions and storage in 190 countries worldwide.
Blockchain.com is a Bitcoin block explorer service, as well as a cryptocurrency wallet and a cryptocurrency exchange supporting Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum. They also provide Bitcoin data charts, stats, and market information.
Vitaly Dmitriyevich "Vitalik" Buterin is a Russian-Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as a co-founder of Ethereum and as a co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.
Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency platform by market capitalization, behind Bitcoin. It is a decentralized open source blockchain featuring smart contract functionality. Ether is the cryptocurrency generated by Ethereum miners as a reward for computations performed to secure the blockchain. Ethereum serves as the platform for over 260,000 different cryptocurrencies, including 47 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
Circle is a peer-to-peer payments technology company. It was founded by Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville in October 2013. Circle's mobile payment platform, Circle Pay, allows users to hold, send, and receive traditional fiat currencies. In September 2015, Circle received the first BitLicense issued from the New York State Department of Financial Services. In April 2016, the British government approved the first virtual currency licensure to Circle. Circle is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.
BTC-e was a cryptocurrency trading platform until the U.S. government seized their website. It was founded in July 2011 by Alexander Vinnik and Aleksandr Bilyuchenko, and as of February 2015 handled around 3% of all Bitcoin exchange volume. Until the 25th of July 2017, it allowed trading between the U. S. dollar, Russian ruble and euro currencies, and the bitcoin, litecoin, namecoin, novacoin, peercoin, dash and ethereum cryptocurrencies.
Kraken is a US-based cryptocurrency exchange, founded in 2011. The exchange provides cryptocurrency to fiat trading, and provides price information to Bloomberg Terminal.
Gemini Trust Company, LLC (Gemini) is a digital currency exchange and custodian that allows customers to buy, sell, and store digital assets. It is a New York trust company that is regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) was founded in 2014, by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.
Ethereum Classic is an open source, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract (scripting) functionality. It supports a modified version of Nakamoto consensus via transaction-based state transitions executed on a public Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Abra is a financial services and technology company that operates an all-in-one cryptocurrency wallet and exchange app. The Abra app is available on both iOS and Android platforms and allows users to buy, sell, and hold 25 cryptocurrencies and 50 fiat currencies in one place. It supports multiple cryptocurrency assets.
Tether is a controversial cryptocurrency with tokens issued by Tether Limited. It formerly claimed that each token was backed by one United States dollar, but on 14 March 2019 changed the backing to include loans to affiliate companies. The Bitfinex exchange was accused by the New York Attorney General of using Tether's funds to cover up $850 million in funds missing since mid-2018.
Binance is a cryptocurrency exchange that provides a platform for trading various cryptocurrencies. As of January 2018, Binance was the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world in terms of trading volume.
An airdrop is a distribution of a cryptocurrency token or coin, usually for free, to numerous wallet addresses. Airdrops are primarily implemented as a way of gaining attention and new followers, resulting in a larger user-base and a wider disbursement of coins.
Cryptocurrency and security describes attempts to obtain digital currencies by illegal means, for instance through phishing, scamming, a supply chain attack or hacking, or the measures to prevent unauthorized cryptocurrency transactions, and storage technologies. In extreme cases even a computer which is not connected to any network can be hacked.
Anthony Di Iorio is a Canadian entrepreneur primarily known as a co-founder of Ethereum and an early investor in Bitcoin. Di Iorio is the founder and CEO of the blockchain company Decentral, and the associated Jaxx wallet. He also served as the first chief digital officer of the Toronto Stock Exchange. In February 2018, Forbes estimated his net worth at $750 million–$1 billion.