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RESEARCH indicates that most of the daily bitcoin trading volume in South Africa comes from a small percentage of traders, and Coindirect’s new model aims to bring cryptocurrency tradings to as many people as possible, says Nic Haralambous, the chief operating officer of Coindirect.

In a South Africa first, Coindirect earlier this month launched a brokerage system aimed at traders who want to do large-volume cryptocurrency transactions (more than R50000).

Haralambous says Coindirect paid close attention to which users were driving the volume of crypto trading during the firm’s first two years in the industry.

“Our approach is to bring cryptocurrency to as many users as possible. However, the data shows that a majority of the daily trading volume in South Africa right now comes from a very small percentage of traders,” says Haralambous.

He says those traders spend an inordinate amount of time doing research in the market as they look to make large-volume transactions, at the best price, for the lowest fees.

He says Coindirect’s over-the-counter (OTC) model is tailor-made for high-volume traders. It uses global integrations to create a wide pool of liquidity sources that enable a bitcoin price guarantee.

Currently, big traders who move high volume have to go on to various exchanges, and have to try and find the best price at the lowest fees and spread their options across multiple platforms, Haralambous says.

“What we’ve done is offered the best price with no hidden fees, no slippage and instant transactions, so that means that the big guys can come and do transactions of up to R1million or R2m worth in a single trade without worrying about anything. They just come on, place their order. They get no fees, no hidden fees, no issues,” he says.

He says that through the OTC desk traders can avoid long transactions, which can be upwards of 12 hours, during which the price may fluctuate, and can avoid a fee of 2percent charged by other exchanges for an instant large-volume trade.

Haralambous says Coindirect offers a locked-in price, which is a “game-changing approach” to cryptocurrency in South Africa, as it hasn’t been offered by any other platform.

“All the recent changes made to the platform have been made to ensure that our customers are afforded the most convenient and secure trading experience. Many of the updates have been the result of discussions with traders on what they need to take their bitcoin trading to the next level.”

He says the South African cryptocurrency exchange space is becoming very cluttered.

“We have decided to come in competitively and take on the most professional type of trader that we think just wants to come in, buy half-a-million rand or R1m worth of crypto and get on with their day without having to spend three hours going for that, so the ease and simplicity of the platform is definitely something we focused on,” says Haralambous.