Cryptocurrency services firm AlphaPoint is powering a new decentralized exchange, the company announced Monday.

DCEX, a San Francisco-based marketplace, formally opened registration for its platform, though clients will not be able to begin trading for a few more weeks. The exchange notably uses XRP as its "base currency," meaning many of its trading pairs are denominated in the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, AlphaPoint CEO Salil Donde said in a blog post.

In its announcement, DCEX says it will be able to offer a total of 15 trading pairs, including XRP, bitcoin, litecoin, ethereum, ethereum classic, vechain, zcash, and stable-coin TrueUSD. The exchange further says it will add neo and ADA, among other trading pairs within months. DCEX also offers access to all 10 coins listed in the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index, which include monero, EOS and dash.

The exchange is based on AlphaPoint's distributed ledger, the announcement said.

DCEX uses XRP as a base in order rapidly move funds with low transaction costs, Donde wrote. Specifically, the XRP ledger is designed for high execution speeds and settlement within a few seconds, which can provide an advantage for traders.

The news comes just a month and a half after AlphaPoint announced it had successfully raised $15 million in its first round of venture capital funding. The funds were raised primarily through Galaxy Digital, the cryptocurrency merchant bank launched by billionaire investor Mike Novogratz.

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