Investing.com - Cryptocurrencies made some gains on Thursday, while a major U.S. brokerage firm announced it is backing a new virtual currency exchange.
Bitcoin rose 1.16% to $6,599.50 on the Bitfinex exchange as of 9:45 AM ET (13:45 GMT).
Cryptocurrencies overall were slightly higher, with the coin market cap of total market capitalization at $219 billion at the time of writing, compared to $215 billion on Wednesday.
Ethereum,or Ether, increased 2.54% to $224.87 and Litecoin was at $58.79, up 1.90% while XRP surged 2.07% to $0.53687.
TD Ameritrade is backing crypto exchange Erisx with the help of other Wall Street companies. The platform will be led by trading veteran Thomas Chippas, who left his job at Citigroup (NYSE:C) to head the project.
While it still needs regulatory approval, the company hopes to list bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether and litecoin futures. It has been backed by DRW and Virtu Financial and has presented itself as a rival to Bakkt, a platform from the New York Stock Exchange’s parent company.
Meanwhile an MP in Ukraine has pushed forward a bill that would allow tax-free crypto trading in the country.
Yuriy Derevyanko told the Ukrainian parliament that taxing cryptocurrency trading earnings is “repressive” and could force skilled IT professionals out of the country.
“This market is still very fragile,” he said. “We must protect the enterprising innovators who are bringing technology to our economy.”
The proposal is in response to another bill that would impose a flat tax rate of 5% for individuals and 18% for corporations.
In other news, Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, said in a statement on Wednesday that it invested A$3.5 million ($2.5 million) in Australian distributed ledger technology (DLT) payment company TravelByBit. The Japan-based crypto exchange is aiming to develop a point-of-sale payment system across airports worldwide, according to the statement.
In August, Brisbane-based TravelByBit received A$100,000 from the Queensland government to promote local tourism.