{"id":18954,"date":"2019-11-20T13:00:46","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T13:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci027cfe7670032697"},"modified":"2019-11-20T13:00:46","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T13:00:46","slug":"shapeshift-is-launching-a-token-for-free-cryptocurrency-trading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/business\/shapeshift-is-launching-a-token-for-free-cryptocurrency-trading","title":{"rendered":"ShapeShift Is Launching a Token for Free Cryptocurrency Trading"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ShapeShift<\/a> now offers its users fee-free trading in the form of an ERC-20 token. <\/p>\n

The self-custody trading platform announced today, November 20, 2019, that it is instituting limited free trading through its FOX token. ShapeShift hopes the incentives token will \u201centice users away from custodial exchanges,\u201d according to a press release from the privacy-focused cryptocurrency exchange.<\/p>\n

All registered ShapeShift users will initially receive 100 FOX tokens free of charge. Each token entitles its holder to $10 worth of free trading volume for rolling, 30-day periods. In effect, this means that if you were to use all of your tokens within one 30-day period, they would reactivate at the start of the next 30-day cycle. Users who are trading while logged into the ShapeShift platform will earn more FOX, calculated at a rate of 0.25 percent of the trade value.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrades are free if you hold FOX tokens, and every user gets FOX tokens when they create an account, thus, trading is truly free for everyone,\u201d ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees told Bitcoin Magazine<\/em> over email. \u201cThe limiter is volume per month: Each FOX token enables $10 of free trading volume per rolling 30-day window. So if you have 100 FOX tokens, you can trade up to $1,000 every 30 days free of charge. Importantly, the user doesn\u2019t have to spend or lose the FOX tokens, simply holding them enables the zero-commission trading.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voorhees also clarified that ShapeShift is not selling the ERC-20 token nor will ShapeShift feature a trading pair for it, though the exchange may sell them if there\u2019s enough demand. Unlike other exchange tokens \u2014 which, like Binance\u2019s BNB or Huobi\u2019s HT, typically trade on spot \u2014 FOX is what Vorhees calls a \u201cperpetual asset,\u201d meaning that users don\u2019t have to spend or burn them to enjoy feeless trading. As Voorhees understands it, FOX<\/em>\u201cis the only asset that provides access to free crypto trading,\u201d whereas other exchange tokens only offer discounts. <\/p>\n

Reshaping ShapeShift<\/h2>\n

Originally launched as a KYC-free trading option, ShapeShift implemented basic KYC<\/a> in the fall of 2018, perhaps in response to the exchange\u2019s reputation as a hub for laundering coins<\/a> (these reports have been called overblown by both ShapeShift and blockchain analytics firm CipherBlade<\/a>).<\/p>\n

News of ShapeShift\u2019s native token comes in a year where the exchange has revamped its trading infrastructure. In July 2019<\/a>, the company rolled out a new-and-improved, noncustodial platform. Under this model, users can use ShapeShift\u2019s KeepKey or Trezor hardware wallets to trade, along with the recently added Portis browser wallet for Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new ShapeShift is arguably the world\u2019s first non-centralized multi-chain digital asset platform. It becomes the basis of self-sovereign finance and we\u2019re immensely proud to bring this to market,\u201d Voorhees told Bitcoin Magazine<\/em> at the time.<\/p>\n

Voorhees believes that the FOX token is the next piece in the puzzle for incentivizing cryptocurrency users to migrate toward its noncustodial model.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hope is that by becoming hyper-competitive on price, we can help entice users into a self-custody model,\u201d he said in this most recent interview. \u201cShapeShift has always advocated for self-custody of digital assets, and now both security and great pricing and liquidity can both be found in one place.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ShapeShift is launching the FOX token, which will give holders access to fee-free cryptocurrency trading and potentially motivate more bitcoin investment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2566,"featured_media":18955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3242,3109,3241],"class_list":["post-18954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-erc-20","tag-erik-voorhees","tag-shapeshift"],"author_data":{"id":2566,"name":"Colin Harper","nicename":"colin-harper","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/MjEwMTYzMzc3Njg5ODYzNjQ2-96x96.webp"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/shapeshift-token-for-free-cryptocurrency-trading.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}