Messaging app Line has become one of the latest companies to get involved with cryptocurrencies. It will be launching its own digital currency exchange BitBox in July 2018. The new platform will support 30 tokens, with four prominent cryptocurrencies already announced, namely: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin.

The platform is expected to support 15 languages, and the company specified that it would only allow crypto-to-crypto trading.

Facebook, which is the parent company of WhatsApp, has recently created an experimental blockchain initiative that Line wants to tackle. Even though Facebook is working on a hush project, it is likely that Line does not want to let the American company take the lead.

BitBox will launch in Singapore and will provide services in English. However, U.S. residents cannot participate on the platform. The same is true for Japanese residents.

The move has come after the Japanese Financial Services Agency made stringent laws in the wake of multimillion dollars hacks from their exchanges.

Line had applied for a crypto exchange license, but the process was halted due to the Coincheck hack. It has reportedly applied for a similar license in the U.S., too. The exchange says it will provide zero trading commissions for new users in the first month.

The Tokyo-based company faces stiff competition with Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. The Chinese giant WeChat is also looking to gain more customers.

Line’s newest step to launch a crypto exchange could be its bid for future survival as well. At present, Line has 165 million monthly active users, which is down 3.5% from last year.

The core market of the company is spread among East Asian nations like Thailand, Taiwan, and Indonesia, apart from Japan. The company could be looking to capture the attention of a millennial audience, which is their target customers for both cryptocurrencies and messaging app service. Line already has its mobile payments service called Line Pay that has 40 million users.

Messaging App Line Will Launch Its Crypto Exchange in July was originally found on [blokt] - Blockchain, Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

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