New Crypto Exchange with Alleged Ties to Belarusian President Launched

A Belarusian company has announced the official launch of what is claimed to be “the world’s first fully-functional trading platform for tokenized securities.” The new exchange, dubbed Currency.com, reportedly allows users to place bets on the price movements of traditional assets – such as a share of Apple or gold – using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum.

According to a statement from the exchange, they will start by issuing around 150 tokenized securities, which will track the underlying market price of common financial instruments, such as global equities, indices and commodities, that users will be able to trade for cryptocurrency. Over time, the exchange plans to issue more than 10,000 such tokens for its users, using technology from sister platform Capital.com.

Within the first two hours, the new exchange received 2,000 applications for registration, according to Reuters. “Currency.com will be authorising new users on the platform gradually to ensure optimal functionality as the service scales,” the exchange said. The Currency.com iOS and Android apps should be available for beta testing from February 2019.

Tokenized commodities on Currency.com:

However, the claim that it is the first exchange of its type is not very accurate. In January, cryptocurrency exchange called DX.Exchange launched stocks trading of giant companies, as reported by Cryptonews.com.

Decree No. 8

According to a report by the independent Belarusian TV network Belsat TV, work on setting up Currency.com in the country started after a government decree called “Decree No. 8 On the Development of the Digital Economy” was signed by President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko in 2017.

Currency.com’s CEO Ivan Gowan said in a statement that the platform is “fully compliant” with “Decree No. 8,” and that it adheres to “the strictest regulatory standards” set by this decree.

The project was launched by two IT-focused investment companies, VP Capital and Larnabel Ventures.

According to Belsat TV, Said Gutseriyev of Larnabel Ventures is the son of the Russian oligarch Mikhail Gutseriyev, a friend of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. “According to unofficial data, it was Gutseriyev, together with Viktar Prakapenya [of VP Capital], who persuaded Lukashenko to sign the decree “On the Development of the Digital Economy,” Belsat TV reported.