On the eve of the launch of Filecoin mainnet, Kraken and Gemini, two major exchanges, "abnormally" announced the launch of FIL

Just before the launch of the Filecoin mainnet, two major mainstream cryptocurrency exchanges, Kraken and Gemini, announced that they would launch Filecoin (FIL) transactions.

Gemini said today that deposits and withdrawals of FIL will be open on October 15 (when the Filecoin mainnet is launched), and trading will be available shortly thereafter. The exchange will also support FIL's custody products. Prior to this, Kraken said on Monday that FIL trading will start on October 15 and open 4 trading pairs: FIL/USD, FIL/EUR, FIL/BTC and FIL/ETH.

Historically, exchanges have only made coin listing announcements after a token’s mainnet has launched. It’s unclear if Gemini and Kraken are trying to start a new trend of listing coins, or if they are just making an exception with Filecoin.

Filecoin, developed by Protocol Labs, is a distributed storage network. It aims to enable users to buy and sell unused storage on the network using FIL. The project has been in development for three years. In 2017, Protocol Labs raised $200 million in just 30 minutes through an initial coin offering, or ICO. The mainnet was originally scheduled to launch in March of this year, but has since been delayed several times until October 15.

Jeremy Welch, Kraken’s vice president of product, told The Block that this is “not a departure from the company’s normal listing strategy.” “We have a robust review framework that reviews efforts to develop crypto services and puts them through a rigorous compliance, legal, and security process.”

As of press time, Gemini has not responded to the listing of FIL.

It is worth noting that other mainstream exchanges are also scrambling to launch FIL transactions as soon as possible after the launch of the Filecoin mainnet, including the "Big Three" (Binance, Huobi and OKEx), competing for the largest traffic after the liquidity mining craze.

Although investors have high hopes for the price of FIL, analysts also believe that since many exchanges have opened FIL transactions, FIL circulation will be limited in a short period of time after the mainnet is launched, and it may face liquidity problems. FIL price volatility is expected to be very high, and investors should pay attention to risks. In addition, the stability of Filecoin after the mainnet is launched is also an uncertain factor.