Bitcoin Competitor NXT in Modest Start to Trade Against Dollar

Copenhagen, Denmark: Around $900-worth of trade in the NXT/dollar market has swapped hands since Saturday, the first day that the cryptocurrency was able to be sold for dollars and euros, according to the website of the Danish virtual bourse offering the service.

CCEDK offered the service last week, hoping for $45,000 a day in turnover within six months in a market which has 20,000 active users, according to the bourse which itself was only established in May.

The majority of the trades in NXT - which is similar to Bitcoin - taking place over the past three days were to sell the cryptocurrency for dollars, according to the website of CCEDK, a Danish company based in a small town called Blokhus in the far north of the country.

It remains to be seen how virtual coins will develop after a boom in bitcoins was hit by a collapse of the biggest exchange - Mt Gox.

While the start to trade has been modest, NXT rose against the dollar to just over 5 cents on Monday from 4.5 cents on Friday, increasing its market capitalisation to $51 million from $45 million, the coinmarketcap.com website showed.

NXT is now the third largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, moving from fourth on Friday, but is still a long way away from the $8.1 billion Bitcoin market and even second largest market of Litecoin at $260 million.

CCEDK's chief executive and founder, Ronny Boesing, said he was pleased with progress over the weekend because the exchange had managed to double its NXT users, even if so many trades had not occurred.

"We have something like 350-400 users of NXT. We have basically doubled the users this weekend. That speaks for itself," Mr Boesing said by telephone.

Copyright @ Thomson Reuters 2014