Seattle-based cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex has today made public its criteria for listing and delisting tokens.
Bittrex chief executive Bill Shihara had already provided some details of the exchange’s decision-making process during a panel at CES 2018, saying the company looks at whether a token is innovative, the team that developed it and its compliance with various legal statutes.
A document provided exclusively to CoinDesk (see below), further breaks down the procedures followed by the exchange, starting with a preliminary review that requires groups to submit both logistical information about the token and identifying information about at least one of the developers behind the project.
Tokens that make it to the full review must complete a compliance procedure to ensure they can be listed within the U.S. After the compliance review is completed, a committee of Bittrex members will look at the blockchain's features, use cases, market interest and the team behind the token, among other characteristics.
Shihara expanded:
"We have to have confidence that as things are breaking that these guys are actually able to fix it and sometimes fix this stuff on the fly. So, you know having a great engineering team and great leadership team matters significantly in the listing process."
Bittrex also outlined a partial list (see bottom) of reasons a token may be taken off its exchange, ranging from regulatory non-compliance to poor handling by the team operating the coin.
If a market or token does fit the criteria for delisting, Bittrex will usually choose the second Friday after the decision is announced as the actual date to remove the token from its platform, allowing investors some time to withdraw their holdings in that token. After the token is actually removed, users will tokens