Decentralized, immutable, and trustless networks as well as the digital technologies that underlie cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, and other record-keeping applications are steadily on the rise. Bitcoin, for example, is not controlled by a single entity or institution, thereby making it mathematically impossible to steal from the network’s users, freeze accounts or stop spending money without access to your wallet’s private key. Blockchain technology’s encryption method guarantees that the record is reliable, without the need for a central governing authority. Users trust the algorithm without having to trust third-party guarantors and regulators, banks and government. The system is completely decentralized organization.
Today, most crypto-enthusiasts willingly chose to relinquish control over all or at least some of their money into the hands of intermediaries like centralized exchanges. Contrary to the principle behind Bitcoin, cryptocurrency users have opted for essential services which allow them to quickly and comfortably purchase and sell crypto-assets at the cost of privacy and safety, leaving them prone to government intervention. When users put their money into an exchange they no longer own it. Instead, they end up entrusting a third-party, the same way as one relies on a bank or other intermediary.
In recent news, certain countries, most notably China, have been escalating their crackdown on cryptocurrency trading through online platforms and mobile apps that offer cryptocurrency exchange services. This exposes how centralized exchanges are by design created to forfeit most of the security benefits cryptocurrencies offer including defense against hacking, heists, inside jobs and even malfunctions.
On the other hand, decentralized exchanges fueled by smart contracts should theoretically reflect the performance of the crypto-market but proved to be ineffective mainly due to slow trading engines, lower liquidity and limited set of trading instruments. However, this level of inefficiency is the alternative many traders settle for rather than risk using centralized exchanges. In response to this, a startup by the name EXPREAD is working to keep the decentralization of the crypto-market intact.
A new champion rises
EXPREAD is a hybrid solution designed to combine the advantages of centralized exchanges (sophisticated functionality, high performance of trading engine) as well as decentralized exchanges (higher security, fully transparent, auditable operations, and joint governance) to offer a highly scalable white-labeled solution on crypto-exchanges. The proposal is to completely decentralize and liberalize cryptocurrency exchange and virtually enable everyone to open his or her own node of exchange, at the same time bringing full aggregation of liquidity in the whole EXPREAD ecosystem.
“By introducing a new paradigm of operating cryptocurrency exchanges, the EXPREAD platform aims to liberate the space while eliminating the high barriers of entry,” Leo Liu, CEO, and co-founder of EXPREAD explained the concept in a press release.
Essentially, EXPREAD will focus on minimizing the barrier of entry to allow more and more people to participate in the exchange of cryptocurrencies. This will help in diminishing the monopolistic concentration of crypto trading operations, thereby playing a constructive role in ensuring that crypto-exchanges provide a designated service level for cryptocurrency users.
EXPREAD is designed as an ecosystem where white label crypto-exchanges, have a shared order book, trading engine, and liquidity pool. It is built on the proposition of shared economy on exchange services where multiple nodes or exchanges aggregate their liquidity, technology costs and unique expertise of the market depth to achieve synergetic value from the network effect. The whole system is composed in a way to distribute the liquidity reserves to avoid single point failures within the system. Furthermore, the entire trading operation is fully auditable by each node or exchange providing adequate internal control process.
The platform is the right choice for those who wish to build their own crypto-exchange. It doesn’t need to accumulate a critical mass of buyers and sellers to be operational thus the exchange owners can concentrate and leverage their own network, community, and existing client base, where they have accumulated trust, to build their crypto-exchange practice.
In the same fashion, EXPREAD will provide decentralized control over the funds deposited in the system, with diminishing concentration coefficient as the number of exchanges increase. The maintenance of the centralized order book and the trading engine makes sure that the exchanges run sophisticated trading tools, with fast execution time for high-frequency traders, and high scalability. To make the community a driving force behind the platform’s development, EXPREAD has embedded an internal governance mechanism into its operations, to make sure the entire ecosystem is always moving in the community-desired direction.
“2018 promises to be an important year for our platform as the team puts forth a global agenda in order to ensure its fast and sustainable development through acquiring strong partnerships and further funding. We are inviting the active crypto enthusiasts to join our telegram global community in order to gain more insight directly from the founders and technical team of the platform”, Leo Liu, CEO, and co-founder of EXPREAD.
