Leading Cryptocurrency Exchange Bitfinex has introduced an Exchange Utility Token UNUS SED LEO, as per the press release on May 17. The Exchange will list the token on Monday, after finally raising $1 billion from Initial Coin Offering.
The token will be useful for different exchange based activities and will enable trading on Bitfinex on May 20 against, bitcoin, the U.S. dollar, the tether (USDT) stablecoin, ether (ETH) and EOS pairs.
The Whitepaper of the project was released on May 10 which describes itself as "a utility token at the heart of the iFinex ecosystem." iFinex claims that it offers highly stronger and independent infrastructure after migrating from Amazon Web Services to a self-designed data center.
Before a month, Bitfinex was rumored to be considering a token sale in order to make $850 million shortfall in funds.
Paolo Ardoino, Chief Technology Officer at Bitfinex said that it has closed $1 billion sale last week, investments probably ranging from $1million to $100 million.
It is still not known who has been specifically bought into the fundraising round, however, on Friday Bitfinex stated that it has sold 100% of the tokens in return of $1 billion in USDT.
The post stated, “The overwhelming response and expedient execution of the token sale represents a new milestone for Bitfinex and the greater Blockchain community.”
“In addition to our excitement around bringing such an unprecedented and powerful token to the heart of our community, the Bitfinex team remains dedicated to continuing to grow and develop core infrastructure for our industry as a whole.”
The exchange has mentioned in its white paper that it will buy back some percent of its circulating exchange tokens every month as per the monthly revenue or possibly the unlocking of its funds by a payment processor like Crypto Capital.
Lately, the New York Supreme Court approved Bitfinex and linked stablecoin project Tether to continue business during legal proceedings raised against it by the New York Attorney General (NYAG).
The NYAG initially asserted that Bitfinex lost $850 million and probably used funds from Tether to secretly cover the loss. Bitfinex replied to the charges stating the NYAG claims are false. The exchange also said it will fight for case in court:
“And rest assured that we will vigorously challenge the false assertions made by the New York Attorney General’s office in their filing… In particular, we want to assure you that the allegation that we have ‘lost’ $850 million is categorically false.”
