Native Bitcoin trading is coming to ShapeShift via THORChain (RUNE)

ShapeShift, a non-custodial cryptocurrency exchange, announced yesterday that it was now fully integrated with THORChain, the decentralized cross-chain liquidity network, as per a release.

Users can now trade native (unwrapped) Bitcoin with Litecoin (LTC) and Ethereum (ETH) on ShapeShift’s mobile and desktop platforms.

We are feeling so good about our launch of @THORChain on mobile today, that we decided to launch our #DEX on our web platform today too.

Launch all the things! 🚀 🚀 🚀 pic.twitter.com/lgkUxl2QJ6

— ShapeShift 🦊 (@ShapeShift_io) April 13, 2021

The move allows Bitcoin traders and investors to participate more freely, securely, and privately in trading with other coins while expanding their options in the world of decentralized finance—using a single user-friendly and incentivized platform.

Thorchain on Shapeshift

THORChain solves the problem of cross-chain trading by building efficient, bi-directional bridges between blockchains at the protocol level in a permissionless, non-custodial manner.

ShapeShift, which announced decentralized exchange (DEX) trading for ETH and ERC-20 assets in January, has now expanded its DEX assets available for trade through this integration with the THORChain liquidity platform.

“We believe finance must be open and immutable. The THORChain team has built technology that brings these properties to the trading of bitcoin and other leading chains for the first time,” said Erik Voorhees, founder and CEO of ShapeShift, in a statement.

He added:

“We saw the power of this technology and wanted to bring it to our users immediately. This is a continuation of our commitment to offering users an easy, self-custody platform for their decentralized trading needs.”

Only ShapeShift DEX users, including those making trades via the new THORChain integration, can earn FOX Tokens with every trade—qualifying them for Rainfall awards (free USDC rewarded to random ShapeShift users each time someone trades on the platform).

Meet THORFox, a cunning, multi-chain viking slamming the decentralized hammer down on the crypto world.

Who likes our @THORChain integration? pic.twitter.com/BSROmgDaaM

— ShapeShift 🦊 (@ShapeShift_io) April 13, 2021

“The team saw an opportunity to provide a ‘public good’ network that would solve a weak point in the cryptocurrency ecosystem: decentralized, cross-chain exchanging,” said THORChain’s lead engineer.

The THORChain team remains pseudonymous, as is commonly seen in the industry for security, privacy, and project integrity reasons (as exemplified by Bitcoin’s founder, Satoshi Nakamoto). Their code is open source and available on Gitlab.

RUNE trades at $14.75 at press time and has a marketcap of over $3.4 billion.

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