I noticed an announcement on Bittrex a couple of days back that it's removing its Hive-USD trading pair, and low and behold today it's no more...
One less exchange where you can change FIAT directly for HIVE.
But does it matter...?
In terms of kudos for HIVE I guess this is not a great thing, it's never great to get a trading pair delisted, and having a direct FIAT on and off ramp gives wider legitimacy to HIVE.
Unless you're a crypto purist and think FIAT is a dirty old technology and we should just stop thinking in terms of dollar conversions altogether, personally I'm not quite there yet, berate me for this in the comments if you like!
In terms of convenience it might make a slight difference as now you have to buy USDT or BTC before buying Hive, and selling HIVE means a similar second step. But this will only ever be for dollar deposits, for trading it makes little difference because the HIVE-USDT pair remains intact....
In fact maybe for traders this is now better as all the $ HIVE liquidity is now on one market not two, presumably meaning you can trade in greater volume.
And this probably isn't that significant as there's around three times less HIVE stored on Bittrex compared to Binance, and a lot more on Upbit.
So while it's obviously not great news that Hive's lost a FIAT trading pair, in the grand scheme of things it's not that bad.
I'm personally a little upset as Bittrex was only the second exchange I signed up to, shortly after Kraken, but that's just emotions, get over them I guess!
I guess the more worrying sign is that this just reflects a lack of wider interest in Hive more generally.
Which in turn reflects how stagnant it feels around here, as one just watches the ratio of comment farmers increase post by post!
So, I see a ton of great responses here and I'll try to answer them as best as I can or am able to-
This is not a full delisting of Hive, but it is a delisting of a single fiat pair- so I think some people have missed that this is not an overall removal of $HIVE. The easiest way to sort of look at this is that US citizens are being blocked out of Bittrex (so are Canadians), so the most likely people who would actually care at all about the USD pair are basically completely unable to access or use it. It's not really a surprise that the volume for that particular pairing is winding down. It's not necessarily a reflection on Hive as much as it is a culling of resources that aren't as necessary on a group of tokens given that they need to streamline a bit. It's also not just a "delisting" of the entire coin, so that's also good.
It is also fair to say that yeah, Bittrex has definitely seen some slowing as other global options are working hard to take a slice of the pie and be more flexible in their offerings. I've asked them if they'd like to do some co-marketing, so we'll see if they've got any life in them yet. That being said... you know, anytime things like this happen- especially when paired with the fact that Bittrex US (not global) was targeted with a $20+ million dollar fine by the SEC and then basically shuttered, it's always good to practice moving your coins around and taking a better look at self custody options. (Not trading? Get your money off exchanges. No excuses.)
I've also seen some comments by Alex and others talking about wishing for more CEXs and fiat pairings, and there's no doubt that that would be nice, as much as DEXs will be the future and match our ideologies better. Absolutely. I work on this almost full time. Where we're at largely is that what's left is either newbie exchanges who need to establish security and trust, and of course, the big US entities. While I'm actively working on a few new listings at any given time, we are very much at a detriment because we have no team, no founder, no company and no foundation. In the US, those are almost exclusively required to move forward with any listing process.
What it usually looks like is first of all finding the real reps, building a relationship with them and going through the painstaking negotiation process of coming to an agreement that we will not pay a listing fee (this is often anywhere from $15k to half a million dollars, depending) and we will not use a shady market maker. Exchanges often rely on all these things to defray the costs and liability of taking on stupid shitty scam coins while still getting a big payout up front and reaping the benefits of a listing pump and then rug dump. Hive isn't like that, which is great, but also means we don't fit the mold that the CEX business models have come to require. It's slowly changing, and I'm working hard on finding ways forward, but it's just so so much harder than if we had a doxxed team who were willing to sign their lives away.
At current, I'm working on some options for legal opinions from the US and other trusted jurisdictions that will help me when working with these types of negotiations. They're not a guarantee for listing, as the biggest players (Kraken, Coinbase, etc) are obviously fully at the whims of the SEC and have strict team and KYC policies that go alongside their listing requirements. Since there is no one in charge of Hive and no one with ownership or a foundation that is a legally bound entity, we have to be so incredibly careful how we enter into legal engagements, as well as how we present our coin. With the recent ruling of Tornado Cash, there is now US precedent that anyone holding a coin could be considered part of an "unregulated association", which is not super cool, lol.
TL;DR- we are at work on so much when it comes to the US in terms of trying to find fiat ramps, CEXs and also legal protection and endorsement of the chain while also not legally binding any individual- it's not a lack of effort, but rather a bit of a slog through the north american listing landscape that hopefully we can start making some headway on soon.
Hi thanks for the very detailed response, very informative!
I hear what you're saying about exchange listings it sounds like a tricky business and it's useful to know as this behind the scenes legal stuff is something we don't often get an insight into!
It's a tricky one with CEXs and DEXs - the former aren't great I know, but in terms of ramping to FIAT well I don't know of a DEX that does that and making that leap to a pure crypto lifestyle, that's impossible for most people!
I could have been clearer about the whole sad Bittrex context and it not just being Hive, that's something I guess so thanks for the clarification there!
Hope life is good! Saw yer vid on digital identity, great stuff!
Yea Bittrex as an exchange in whole has been winding down operations and the amount of Hive deposited there has been constantly going down. Hive engine now has more liquidity on Hive than Bittrex
Holy shit that really is saying something! It's just nostalgia for me, Bittrex!
Ah crap. This was not what I was looking for in the top viewed posts section today.
It's a bit of an inconvenience right!
It's the FIAT conduits I am concerned about. <GBP-Bank Account>, Kraken used to have one but it's been a long time since I used it. Do you know if it's operational?
It was working around 15 months ago! Last time!
Doh.., that's old intel. I think the Coinbase one works but they are in bed with Hector.
Hector?
https://alchetron.com/Hector-the-Tax-Inspector
RIP Bittrex? Soon(tm)!
Good post sir, I enjoyed this story
And your comment kind sir most excellent. Best of probabilities to you!
I hadn't had a chance to try Bittrex. But converting from GBP to HIVE via Binance was horribly expensive in terms of both fees and the prices they were quoting (significantly worse than those shown on CoinGecko !).
Right now, Transak seems to work out the best value. I miss being able to just buy HIVE through Blocktrades.
Going forward, do we have anyone within Hive who has any contacts in any exchanges that could be leveraged, or for that matter anyone who is a secret banker that could somehow create a direct fiat to HIVE on-ramp ?
I wasn't aware of Transak, we still have Binance so all is not lost!
I got booted from bitrex years ago for being a yank.
Last year binance wanted kyc. So i left. Last month i lost my last exchange, kucoin demanding kyc.
I was looking to buy 300$ of hive, but not even sure how to do that anymore. Lol, more than just hive, the crypto ecosystem seems to be shrinking, unless you want kyc or to get some biochip installed in the back of your head. 🤣
Oh shit, how do you get crypto out then? Just rely on friends wanting to buy some? I don't think KYC bothers most people!
Here where I live is very crypto friendly. There is a bitcoin atm, many cafes that accept crypto and there are several people who will cash out large amounts at 5% or less.
Oh that all sounds very nice!
Not great news, but Bittrex already kicked all of their US customers to the curb. I don't like see the news because its one less off ramp for others and I'm trying to figure out what happens to their hive they had purchased for liquidity
Yes fair point RE the US - a relatively small leg down I guess!
Never good to lose a Hive market.
I was a big fan of bittrex in the early days but haven't used it in the past couple of years.
I would say that all of the exchanges are feeling the pain after this bear market and with the US crackdowns. Hopefully we see some good news soon to make up for it.
We cld do with a win for sure!
If you look further, I'll bet all direct USD pairs are gone since Bittrex ended support for US customers.
Probably right!
Bittrex has some internal problems recently, they changed their site layout (for worse imho) etc
I think bear market is hitting them hard
Yes, that could well be a factor!
Ionomy still lists HIVE. But they don’t have a stable coin. It requires an intermediate trade
And such tiny tiny volume! Alomost unuseable!
Sounds like in line with what Bittrex is doing in general right? Would stash funds there as it feels like it is slowly taking back the gas.
But indeed..it always hurts a but when Hive is delisted somewhere as it would always be something to crank up the valume and people just want to trade 'everything'
It's not great news for sure! Need to get some funds off Bitteex actually!
While this is not welcome news I am not personally affected as I still use binance. But binance is in a lot of heat lately I just hope they get out of it.
I don't think any of the exchanges are having a great time right now!
I remember that I bought my first HIVE stash on Bitteex... Good old days!
At least they still have the USDT-HIVE pair.
Yeah so not too bad!
You got 22 comments over the summer holidays. That seems pretty active to me.
A few people upset yes!
The come-and-go, rise-and-fall of exchanges has been...interesting, I guess is the word. Mt Gox, then Poloniex was the go-to, then Bittrex. Now? I really don't know.
It doesn't feel great fr sure!
What I'm looking forward to see is an integration with THORChain where users can directly convert their HIVE to other assets without even needing to use a wrapped version. CEX listings are good to have; but DEXs are better. What I want to see the most is ability to easily buy HIVE with fiat.
Oh a thing with Thor would be great, it's a shame Leo's bridges aren't better supported!
Most people are not even aware of the existence of HIVE. We must get our marketing act together!
Yes peops been saying this for years, TBH I think it's gonna be a BTC pump we're relying on!
As @dalz said, Bittrex has been going down for the last couple of years... I know that I stopped using it when I noticed their FEEs were almost 10 times higher than the competition... I do understand that you may have a higher level of service, but that was a bit too much for me to grasp...
I think that it was one of the first exchanges that I used, after Bitstamp, and MtGox, but if you don't adapt, you die...
So no great loss then! I didn't know that about fees!
I'm of the opinion that $HIVE should be on several big exchanges with several trading pairs just for the sake of exposure and ease of onboarding. At least in this early stage of HIVE adoption. Someone who has a Coinbase account and happened to listen to Crimsonclad's speech at Rare Evo might decide to pick up some $HIVE to see what this is all about.
We do need to develop decentralized options as well, so that we don't depend on CEXs down the line.
Early years --> a few big CEXs with lots of trading pairs
Teen years --> Many liquidity pools and DeFi options
It's defo preferable IMO too but no great loss here as I guess Bittrex is quite small!
When issues of withdrawal or delisting starts in any exchange, it means a particular coin must be at the receiving end of such action.
Still don't grab why Hive is not creating more awareness to the outside world. Though the growth is gradual, but still not fast enough to meet with the trend of others.
Or who knows why Bittrex might have taken that action ?.
Sometimes this exchange finds themselves in situation, where they need coins with less users to come out of.
We can't point fingers now at any exchange for any actions they take, better still, we should try to figure out why they took such action.
Just say....
I think maybe just not enough volume probably!
Indeed a bad news for Hive which losses another exchange
It's not great is it?!?
That's sad... Bittrex used to be one of my main fiat on-ramps. They've been reducing their footprint so much these days that I'm starting to get worried. Will probably move my btc off today or tomorrow.
Actually I have a few funds I think I should move off myself! Fair point!
To my knowledge we're still listed on Probit. Hopefully this will be the last delisting...
This post has been manually curated by the VYB curation project
It's only one pair at least!
True... I prefer the btc pairings anyway, especially during a bear market
i used bittrex a lot 3-4 years ago, but for hive last few years it was unusable. the wallets were down more than operational. you had to lurk to see when you can transfer funds to Hive. maybe something changed in the last year because i was not checking it out.
I remember those days, I think it's much more reliable now!
I am upset always. Bittrex is the first exchange platform I registered for HIVE. Not good to see such news while we expect HIVE to thrive in the future. Kinda backwards.
In my case I mainly use the Hive/USDT pair which seems more dynamic and generates more profits
Your post has just been boosted by the team @pof.cent
Bittrex getting Hive out is not good, but I believe it stop nothing on Hive
I didn't even know Bittrex still functions.
Post voted 100% for the hiro.guita project. Keep up the good work.
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Needless to say
I used to trade with a coin but the bastards at bitrrex took it away and lost the point of using the platform.
Ni que lo diga
Yo tradeaba con una moneda pero los bastardos de bitrrex me lo quitaron y perdió el sentido de usar la plataforma
That's not a good news for us
It is just like a loss but we can do better by investing more
I really feel bad about that though..
Not sure how surprised I am by this move as earlier this year they booted all U.S. customers. U.S. regulartors are making it tougher to get into crypto, especially Hive. Not sure if there is an exhange that sells Hive that still accepts U.S. customers.