Bitcoin Cash Advocate Roger Ver Considers Launching Own Exchange

(Bloomberg) -- Digital-coin wallet provider Bitcoin.com plans to buy or develop its own exchange, according to Chief Executive Officer Roger Ver.

The early investor in Bitcoin, who courted controversy last year when he switched his allegiance to an offshoot, Bitcoin Cash, said he’s considering finding a partner to produce the platform, or may “build one internally,” in an interview in Malta. He gave few other details.

“If we build it ourselves, we can do it really, really cheap, and we get exactly what we want,” he said of the the firm’s early-stage plans. “But we don’t have the security of a battle-tested exchange that’s been around for a while.”

Ver, an early promoter and investor in Bitcoin, is expecting to tap the traffic already running through his website for services ranging from news to wallet operations. He may also be seeking a way to increase adoption of Bitcoin Cash, which has struggled to gain traction after it was spun off in 2017. It may be facing a split of its own later this year.

Ver said Bitcoin Cash would be the base-currency for the exchange.

The exchange “will be posted on Bitcoin.com so we’ll have thousands or tens of thousands of new users every single day,” he said.

Bitcoin.com has become less attractive in the second half of the year than it was in the first, according to data published by Alexa.com, an online traffic analytics firm owned by Amazon.com Inc.

For more on Roger Ver, check out the Decrypted  podcast:

To contact the reporters on this story: Eddie van der Walt in London at evanderwalt@bloomberg.net;Nour Al Ali in Dubai at nalali1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Samuel Potter at spotter33@bloomberg.net, Todd White, Dave Liedtka

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.