Bitfinex has announced that there are now 12 new altcoins to trade on its platform, according to a press release.

Bitfinex says that the new coins are “…a curated selection of high-quality projects, each pioneering research within various sectors of blockchain development.” They have a combined market capitalisation of over $1 billion and can all be traded against BTC, ETH and USD.

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The coins are:

Aion (AION) – “designed to support custom blockchain architectures, while providing a trustless mechanism
for cross-chain interoperability”

IOSToken (IOST) – “The New Pinnacle of Throughput”

Request Network (REQ) – “allows anyone, anywhere to request a payment”

Raiden Network (RDN) – “an off-chain scaling solution, enabling near-instant, low-fee and scalable payments”

Loopring (LRC) – “a decentralized, automated trading intelligence interfaces between crypto exchanges and blockchains, using our balance sheet to enable users to realize liquidity many times greater than available directly in the market”

BnkToTheFuture Token (BFT) – “allows investors to trade equity stakes in companies involved with the blockchain”

Cofound.it (CFI) – “a platform that connects you to teams that have trained to become serious blockchain businesses”

Wax (WAX) – “enables anyone to operate a fully functioning virtual marketplace with zero investment in security, infrastructure, or payment processing”

SingularityNET (AGI) – “lets anyone create, share, and monetize AI services at scale”

MedicalChain (MTN) – a blockchain designed to “securely store and share electronic health records”.

Odem (ODEM) – “an On-Demand Education Marketplace built on the Ethereum blockchain.”

Perhaps most interesting is the inclusion of Dai (DAI), a cryptocurrency whose price is tied to the US dollar. This is interesting because Bitfinex already also has (uncomfortably) close ties with a coin which claims to do this – Tether. In fact, Bitfinex has come under fire relationship with Tether, which is suspected of not being able to back up its tokens with dollars as it claims.

Bitfinex published this statement in Medium:

“In addition to the tokens outlined above, we will also be adding support for Dai. Dai is a digital, decentralised stablecoin built on Ethereum, developed by the MakerDao team. Dai will initially be made available against BTC, ETH and USD whilst we explore the possibility of adding additional DAI pairs.

Through the combined integration of DAI and USDT we aim to connect currently disparate markets and facilitate new trading opportunities across a diverse range of tokens, markets and exchanges.”

Jean-Louis van der Velde, Bitfinex CEO, said: “The introduction of such a large selection of tokens, representing a diverse array of blockchain-based projects, marks an exciting development for Bitfinex.”

Bitfinex is a cryptocurrency exchange with daily trading volumes of over $500 million. As a company it is both successful and mysterious. It was originally founded in Hong Kong in 2012, but its employees and subsidiaries are spread around the world, from France to California. It is operated by a Hong Kong-based company called iFinex Inc.

We reported on Bitfinex yesterday regarding its alleged connection with criminal activity in Poland. Bitfinex denies the rumours and the investigation is ongoing.