A well known over-the-counter Chinese trader, Dong Zhao has taken to his Weibo account to disclose that Bitfinex may soon launch its own native cryptocurrency.

Dong Zhao is a shareholder with the Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange and also the founder of Blockchain investment firm DGroup.

He disclosed to Coindesk that he was the architect of the idea and was the one who suggested the plan to Bitfinex. Bitfinex has not responded to any request for comment pertaining to the report.

The exchange may indeed have such plans but the details are not 100% confirmed. The exchange was recently reported to have lost $850 million in customer and corporate funds.

$900 million from its affiliated company Tether

However, it was also revealed that Bitfinex, upon loss of the funds, secretly took a loan of around $900 million from its affiliated company Tether, issuer the tether stablecoin to keep its head above water.

As the news of the lost funds became controversial, Bitfinex later announced that $850 million had been “seized” by several authorities and was working relentlessly to recover the funds.

Dong Zhao further explained that the issuance of an exchange’s cryptocurrency is the most feasible solution to Bitfinex’s problem and that the token issuance approach has good advantage to users in terms of liquidity. According to him,

“Exchange tokens have better liquidity. They are the only real token that is not a shitcoin. The issuance method could be similar to that of other exchange tokens, which were distributed through pre-paid trading fee packages.”