Ethereum and Litecoin to be added to Uphold's currency transfer cloud

Uphold, the cloud-based money transfer platform founded by Halsey Minor in 2014, is adding Ethereum and Litecoin to the 25 currencies and four commodities it handles at present. Litecoin will be added in April and Ether in May, said a statement.

Uphold, which transacted some $740m in its first year of business, helped develop gaming currency, Voxel, which will be used to trade on virtual reality and 3D assets trading platform, Voxelus. Uphold also launched in China in December and recently announced a partnership with the Antwerp World Diamond Centre to facilitate payments along a complex diamond supply chain.

Adding these two new blockchain-based currencies brings Uphold one step closer to its mission to provide a platform for members to transact all forms of value, said the statement.

Uphold said: "The two new cryptocurrencies were selected for their growing popularity in the developer and open source communities, and with financial traders and enthusiasts.

"Litecoin is a peer-to-peer Internet currency that enables instant, near-zero cost payments to anyone in the world; an open source, global payment network that is fully decentralised. Ethereum is a decentralised platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third-party interference."