Binance launched British pound-backed stablecoin, the first of many fiat-pegged stablecoins to come on Binance Chain

Stablecoins • July 22, 2019, 2:00PM EDT
UPDATED: July 23, 2019, 11:18AM EDT
The Block

Binance announced today the listing of its long-awaited new stablecoin BGBP, pegged 1:1 to the British pound. This is the first step towards the cryptocurrency exchange giant’s ambition to build a collection of stablecoins pegged to different fiat currencies on the Binance Chain. 

The BGBP/USDC trading pair will be available on Binance for trading at 4:00 a.m., July 23 UTC, with a 0.1% trading fee. The coins will be fully backed by a reserve of British pound, per a company blog post.  

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The exchange first announced that it was testing a GBP-backed stablecoin in early June. At the time, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao confirmed that only £200 worth of the token had been issued. 

In a phone interview with Bloomberg, Binance’s chief financial officer Wei Zhou said that Binance is considering adding more coins tied to fiat currencies in the near future, with BGBP being the first stablecoin of the many to come. 

Currently, the only two other venues that provide GBP-pegged stablecoins are the TrueGBP project and eToro’s GBP stablecoin project. 

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Celia joined The Block as a reporter after earning her BA in the History of Science from the University of Chicago. Having spent years pondering over why 2+2 cannot equal 5, she is interested in the history and philosophy of mathematics, computation, and cryptography. She also had a very brief stint at Crunchbase News.

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