Japanese Messaging Giant LINE Announces Addition of TRX to BITBOX

LINE Corporation has announced the addition of Tron’s TRX to its BITBOX cryptocurrency exchange. BITBOX was announced by the company in June and opened its doors in July to global clientele, with the exception of those in the US and Japan. TRX becomes the first crypto to be approved for listing by the BITBOX open-listing committee. To celebrate the listing, BITBOX and Tron will conduct an airdrop of 9 million TRX coins in a promotional event that will run until August 22, LINE announced in a press release on August 15. The company also announced that its subsidiary Unblock Corporation had launched a $10 million fund for investing in blockchain startups.

Backing the Blockchain

LINE Corp has made rapid strides in its efforts to become a leader in the crypto and blockchain world. In June, the Tokyo-based company announced that together with its wholly-owned subsidiary LVC Corporation, it would launch the BITBOX crypto exchange. Two weeks later, the exchange opened its doors, promising investors support for up to 30 cryptos. And now, BITBOX users can trade the twelfth most valuable crypto.

BITBOX praised TRON’s progress since its successful testnet launch in March of this year. Describing it as a project that’s dedicated to “building the infrastructure for a truly decentralized internet,” BITBOX recognized some of the major milestones that Tron has achieved over the past year including May’s mainnet launch and the acquisition of BitTorrent. Integrating Tron into the platform will give BITBOX the opportunity to connect to the fastest-growing blockchain project, the CEO of LINE Tech Plus stated. LINE Tech Plus is the subsidiary of LINE Corp that operates BITBOX. It’s based in Singapore.

TRON has a solid tech platform, especially now that it has joined forces with BitTorrent. We look forward to building a strategic partnership with TRON and offering our users the best experience available in the cryptocurrency space.

Tron’s founder, Justin Sun, was just as excited about the listing. Sun stated that Tron would use its industry expertise to help LINE develop a fast and secure crypto exchange. He also stated that Tron aims to use the partnership to broaden its audience and to target the mobile market. With Tron’s platforms such as BitTorrent and Peiwo having a combined user base in excess of 100 million users, the partnership will be mutually beneficial to the two companies, he added.

BITBOX believes that every crypto deserves an equal opportunity to be listed on the exchange, the press release stated. It also called on any crypto project that wants to join the exchange to apply, but only if they are prepared to undergo a thorough evaluation.

LINE also announced that its subsidiary, Unblock Corporation, had launched a $10 million corporate token venture fund. Based in Korea, Unblock will make investments in the crypto market and will seek to expand its scope according to the future growth of the blockchain market. The new initiative is aimed at ultimately boosting the adoption of cryptos, the company stated.

BITBOX doesn’t offer its services in the US or its home nation of Japan, nor does it offer the option to trade cryptos for US dollars. That decision is believed to have stemmed from the heightened regulatory requirements in these nations, with the FSA in Japan having become stringent on regulations since Coincheck was hacked and lost $500 million worth of cryptos in January. In the US, the SEC has also talked tough on cryptos that it considers securities, insisting that they be registered and regulated like other securities. Only Ether and Bitcoin have been cleared by the regulator.