Kraken Enables Bitcoin Cash and XRP Margin Trading

High Risk Margin Trading Expanded at Kraken

Margin trading allows users to leverage their accounts with funds they do not actually possess. This can lead to far greater profits but and also greatly amplify losses. One wrong trade can wipe out an entire account so it is not for the feint hearted.

San Francisco based Kraken has just added two more crypto assets to the six it already offers. Currently users can leverage trades on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Tether, Monero and Augur. As announced on the company blog today, Bitcoin Cash and XRP have just been added to this list.

The available leverage, or borrow limits, will depend on the verification level of the account. Top tier four accounts can get up to 500 BCH or 2.5 million XRP. Leverage starts a 2x for BTC trades and goes up to 5x for XRP fiat trades. Kraken has posted a warning about the dangers of high risk trading and recommends having a healthy account balance to back margins;

“Please note that BCH and XRP are not collateral currencies. This means you cannot open margin positions against the value of your BCH or XRP balances. For this reason, you should always maintain adequate balances of other collateral currencies to maintain your margin positions.”

XPR Base Pairings Grow

More exchanges are now looking towards XRP as a base pair to add to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether. Earlier this week Binance announced that it was expanding its listings to include the XRP/TRX (Tron) and XRP/XZC (Zcoin) base pairs.

The world’s top exchange also added that it will rename the Ethereum markets to ‘ALTS’ to reflect the different base pairs now offered.

Market Reaction

Crypto markets are rebounding again today and both XRP and BCH are getting a lift. At the time of writing XRP was up 8% on the day to $0.375, it has made almost 7% over the past week but is down over 3% from the same time last month.

Bitcoin Cash meanwhile is up and down like a yoyo. Today BCH has posted gains of around 16% taking it over $170 again but since last weekend it has dropped 9%. The volatility has crept back into crypto markets so it is unlikely the Kraken addition of these to assets has made a difference to their prices.

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