Bitfinex Announces Removal Of Dozens In Trading Pairs For “Optimization”

Bitfinex announced the summary removal of 87 trading pairs from its platform. These pairs will be removed completely, with the changes itself coming into effect on the 26th of March, 2020.

Optimizing Trader Experiences

Major cryptocurrency exchanges that open themselves up to large arrays of minor cryptocurrencies run the risk of those same cryptocurrencies bogging them down. Some gain success through it, but other exchanges experience a simple lack of use. However, it’s rare for exchanges to announce a clean-up, removing the unwanted crypto pairs from its system. Bitfinex has done just that, announcing to the world that it purges its platform of 87 trading pairs.

The official reasoning given behind this move, is to “optimize the trading experience,” for its users. What this implies, is that these trading pairs have been unpopular, illiquid, or simply non-profitable for the exchange itself. Whatever the case may be, the announcement came on the 20th of March, 2020.

The List Of To-Be-Removed Coins

Some of these trading pairs are relatively significant. Things like Request (REQ), Bancor (BNT), Storj (STJ), Polymath (POY),  Zilliqa (ZIL), QASH (QSH), UTRUST (UTK), as well as SpankChain (SPK) are on the list. These and many others will have their BTC trading pairs summarily removed from the exchange, leaving nothing of it left.

Some trading pairs that buy Ethereum ETH, will be removed, as well. For example, Qtum and Decentraland (QTM and MANA respectively)

Their Time’s Come And Gone

Something important to note is some of these crypto projects have been around since 2017. Furthermore, many of them boasted significant volumes in the past, as well. However, a lot of these coins seem to have completely dried up in terms of interests. As for the response to this announcement, for the most part, it was praised, heralding this removal of minor coins as a “clean-up” that was desperately needed on the exchange.

Bitfinex will remove 87 trading pairs, commencing on 26/03/2020, to optimize the trading experience for our user base.

➡️Find the list of trading pairs at https://t.co/9ZVoJ9SMBd

— Bitfinex (@bitfinex) March 20, 2020

As it stands now, most of the global sentiment for crypto had sunken into the massive scare that is the coronavirus pandemic. Billions of USD in value dropped within the span of a week, with countless scared crypto holders opting to sell their crypto in light of the ongoing crisis.

This has a compounding effect, as many investors then try to sell their holdings to make up for a loss, which only serves to drive the market even lower. It’s all fascinating from an outside perspective, but John Doe, who bought BTC for $8000, wanting to make a quick market movement buck, had his investment almost halve in value in just a week. That’s not a pleasant experience, in the slightest.