Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss's Gemini Trust Company LLC has gotten a New York State regulator's blessing to trade another kind of cryptocurrency on its bitcoin exchange.
Gemini won approval from the New York Department of Financial Services to begin trading Ether, a cryptocurrency similar to bitcoin, on its platform immediately, according to a release Thursday. The twins, who claimed that Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea for a social-networking website when he started Facebook Inc., were early entrepreneurs in the bitcoin industry.
With the agency's approval, Gemini is expanding the kinds of cryptocurrency that can trade on its platform. Similar to bitcoin, Ether is based on a distributed ledger called blockchain.
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The New York State Department of Financial Services on Monday gave a third virtual currency company the green light to begin operations in the state.
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In order for a blockchain to succeed, it needs to be a public resource. That means few alternative blockchains are likely to achieve much traction outside a small niche.
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Critics concede Bitcoin's innovations may change finance but predict the system itself isn't long for this world. Nasdaq is challenging that idea by not only testing Bitcoin's much-vaunted blockchain technology, but doing so on the Bitcoin network.
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"Their approval of Gemini as the first-ever licensed platform to support Ether trading demonstrates their commitment to being global thought leaders in financial regulation that both protects consumers and fosters innovation," the Winklevoss brothers said in the statement.
Gemini Trust first received state approval to start a bitcoin exchange in October, allowing users to convert virtual money to U.S. dollars and vice versa. It was the second bitcoin company to be designated by the state agency as a trust after ItBit Trust Co. got approval last year.
