Los Angeles-based digital currency exchange CoinMKT has launched an API to provide advanced access to its platform.

The company offers trading between 10 different digital currencies and USD – and that now also includes dogecoin.

Travis Skweres, the CEO of CoinMKT, told CoinDesk that the API is a step towards getting professional traders and hedge funds using the exchange.

Explained Skweres:

“There’s a huge need for institutional trading. Our long-term strategy is companies and institutional traders.”

API

Skweres said that up to this point CoinMKT had been mostly a retail operation focused on individual customers. Now, the exchange’s API brings new functions to the platform such as programming trade engines.

The company’s main trading screen. Source: CoinMKT

Being a US-based exchange means that the company’s API offers a first-mover opportunity.

Skweres said:

“I don’t mind if CoinMKT is the invisible exchange house. That doesn’t matter to me. I’ll be invisible and exchange everything.”

A number of companies exist in the more institutional space that CoinMKT is attempting to break into with its API. New York-based Coinsetter is a trading platform with access to Bitstamp for professional investors that want to move in and out of the bitcoin market.

Palo Alto-based Vaurum is another example of a company that wants to fill a need that exists for investors and traders. Vaurum plans to offer an exchange that can plug into more established trading platforms.

Dogecoin

CoinMKT also recently added dogecoin to its exchange, which brings its total trading pairs to USD up to 10. In addition to bitcoin, altcoins of note on the exchange include litecoin, feathercoin and namecoin.

While dogecoin is generally used for tipping purposes, there aren’t many avenues for digital currency investors to obtain doge with USD like they can on CoinMKT.

Skweres said: “Most of the altcoin trading is still to bitcoin, it’s not to the dollar. There is not a massive market for doge to dollars.”

DOGE/USD trading on the company’s exchange. Source: CoinMKT

Even so, he said that he believes dogecoin offers something new and innovative. He thinks the decision to allow doge to continue to generate new coins to reward miners will propel the altcoin to future success:

“Doge wasn’t really innovative until they added the inflationary aspect, which is awesome. So, now I think actually doge is a serious alternative.”

Dogecoin’s use as an online tipping mechanism is also a strong suit, said Skweres: “It has such a strong community it might accidentally become the amazing currency of the internet.”

Commissions

CoinMKT has decided to decrease its fees in order to entice users to trade, lowering commission to 0.3%. The company said that market makers will now receive a 0.05% rebate.

Exchanges such as itBit and BTC China have also lowered fees recently – Skweres cited Mt. Gox as a contributing factor.

“We’re finally seeing how bad Mt. Gox really hurt everybody. The other exchanges, including us, we benefitted in the short term from getting an influx of signups.”

Despite the increase in registrations, it was only a brief rush, according to Skweres, who’s concerned about bitcoin’s ability to break through to the masses given the number of negative headlines that have been linked to decentralized money:

“It really hurt perception. Mainstream adoption has slowed down a little bit.” 

Even so, CoinMKT’s strategy of developing an exchange for many different digital currencies will not change. “I’m still bullish on altcoins because I think we’re so early in the game,” said Skweres.

Detailed information about CoinMKT’s API is available on the company’s website.

Image via Dogecoin