Gemini, the truly American bitcoin exchange founded by the Winklevoss Twins of Facebook fame seems to be having some trouble trying to get traders on board. The New York based company recently received the required clearances from the New York State authorities and started its operations from October 8, 2015.
Gemini has portrayed itself as the NASDAQ of bitcoin and Gemini has been stressing upon the fact that it works exclusively with American banks and it ensures that the dollars invested on Gemini will never leave the country. However, the pinch of patriotism displayed the company doesn’t seem to have made much difference. The Winklevoss twins have stated that their platform is choosy when it comes to onboarding traders as it is looking to onboard institutional traders to maintain an edge over its competitors.
However bitcoin traders are a bit more skeptical about Gemini’s strategy due to lack of discounts or benefits offered by the platform to new users. According to Coindesk, retail bitcoin traders have expressed their displeasure over Gemini’s pricing model. Currently Gemini charges both buyers and sellers and this has not gone well with many bitcoin retail traders.
Everyone enters bitcoin trading with the sole intention of making maximum profits out of any given opportunity and to do that there are plenty of bitcoin exchanges across the world with more liquidity than Gemini. Retail traders rather opt for these exchanges than trade on Gemini. While most of the institutional bitcoin exchanges offer rebate to businesses trading with them, Gemini is charging them 25 basis points to both buyer and seller on its platform.
The model on which Gemini is built on goes completely against the core principle of bitcoin, which is to make transactions seamless and economical. The whole bitcoin industry’s opinion seems to be against Gemini’s adopted market practice. Whether Gemini will succeed or fail we will know soon.