Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance is adding support for credit card crypto purchases through its partnership with payment processor Simplex, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph Jan. 31.
Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s CEO, said that the firm “want[s] to provide Binance traders with fast and easy access to crypto, in the most secure way possible.” Zhao added that the exchanges clients can purchase digital assets with credit cards and “start trading in minutes.”
Zhao continued explaining that “the crypto industry is still in its early stages and most of the world’s money is still in fiat,” which, according to him, is the reason why fiat gateways are important for the growth of the ecosystem.
Nimrod Lehavi, co-founder and CEO of Simplex, said that for mainstream users, easy and fast credit card payments are “a key factor in wider adoption of crypto in general.”
According to the press release, Binance users will be able to use Visa and MasterCard cards to purchase Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Ripple (XRP).
Binance is currently the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by adjusted daily trade volumes, according to CoinMarketCap. Over the past 24 hours to press time, the exchange saw about $588 million in trades.
Last year, Cointelegraph itself also partnered with Simplex to enable credit card purchases of BTC, ETH and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
Last week, Binance launched its own over-the-counter (OTC) trading desks for larger transactions. The new offering, dubbed Binance OTC, offers services geared to users performing trades worth at least 20 BTC (about $68,800 to press time).
Following the hack of New Zealand exchange Cryptopia last week, Zhao announced that Binance had frozen some of the tokens sent to its wallet by the alleged hacker. Analysis from blockchain infrastructure firm Elementus states that as much as $16 million worth of ETH and ERC20 tokens were stolen in the recent hack, plus additional funds reportedly even more recently siphoned off.