Cryptocurrency exchanges are a gateway for newcomers to explore Bitcoin and other assets. As this space grows more competitive, newcomer exchanges must offer something to make them stand out.
Several up-and-coming platforms may be worth checking out.
More Exchange Competition is Good
Over the years, the cryptocurrency community has seen the rise and fall of many popular trading platforms and exchanges. While this has helped separate the insecure platforms from the legitimate companies, it has also reduced the competitive playing field a bit. These days, a lot of people flock to the same exchanges, including Coinbase, Binance, Crypto.com, and so forth.
For up-and-coming exchanges, this makes life a bit more complicated. It is very challenging to compete with these industry giants unless one can introduce some unique features and aspects. Several up-and-coming platforms may prove worthwhile to check out, especially for users who want to explore options other than traditional trading.
CoinZoom
As a B2C and B2B brokerage providing digital banking solutions for fiat and cryptocurrency, CoinZoom added an exchange service to its products in March of 2020. Their institutional-grade trading platform is customer-focused and aims to make all customers successful traders. The company also provides a Visa card – supporting selling, buying, and trading of Bitcoin, and other assets in the US.
Rather than focusing on just trading, CoinZoom provides a peer-to-peer remittance system for fiat and cryptocurrencies, known as ZoomMe. It is known as the “Venmo for Crypto” and lets users send money to friends and family internationally for no extra cost.
As a registered cryptocurrency exchange in the United States with an MSB license across all 50 states and a Money Transmitter license in 48 states, CoinZoom provides a broad selection of cryptocurrency-related services and products for customers across the US. The company is also active as a Digital Currency Exchange in Australia and aims to obtain its e-money license in Europe shortly.
ZKSwap
As a project founded in August 2020, ZKSwap is designed to better support layer-two scaling solutions on the Ethereum blockchain. Even though Ethereum is home to many great projects, its main chain can not support the growing number of applications. As a layer-two decentralized exchange, ZKSwap uses ZK-Rollup technology, giving it all of the functionality one finds at Uniswap, but with much better scalability and lower fees.
Performance-wise, ZKSwap increases the TPS by several orders of magnitude while consuming far less gas. Token exchanges are free from gas fees, as everything is settled on layer-two. Additionally, ZKSwap offers a TPS of up to 6,000 per second, compared to Ethereum’s 10-15. Combined with real-time transactions to remove the waiting time associated with block confirmations, it creates a compelling trading platform.
This makes ZKSwap appealing to anyone looking to trade cryptocurrencies, as the team wants to focus on gaining global traction. Their communities span different languages and regions, further confirming the appeal of this layer-two decentralized exchange. Competition among layer-two exchanges is heating up, yet ZKSwap is one of the few that can be deemed production-ready. Moreover, other projects have a poor user experience, turning people away from cryptocurrencies altogether.
ETHBox
This smart contract-based digital escrow for transferring Ether and other tokens provides a secure solution supporting Ethereum and ERC-20-compliant tokens. Its underpinning technology has been built with the help of crypto incubator DuckDAO in the summer of 2020. The project’s main focus is secure transactions with additional privacy for any amount and letting users benefit from staking and revenue-sharing systems, as well as governance rights. Eventually, ETHbox will expand its service to encompass over top digital assets.
The service of ETHbox can also prove useful for OTC trading, as funds can be moved through these smart contracts in combination with traditional network transfers. Having a safety net to ensure no transactions are lost if a mistake occurs is a welcome addition for most users. Any centralized exchange can interoperate with ETHbox to leverage its feature set. One could argue ETHbox is a marketing solution for exchanges looking to attract new customers.
AAX
As the “next generation, digital asset exchange” AAX wants to bring more trust to the cryptocurrency industry. The privately-held exchange is gaining a strong following in Asia-Pacific since its Launch in November 2019. Under the hood, its matching engine is the same as the one powering the London Stock Exchange, confirming the team’s professional approach to this industry. Since its launch, the platform has facilitated growing trading volumes for all major cryptocurrencies.
As the user base of AAX keeps growing, the exchange has begun competing with larger derivatives exchanges. It also provides a new way to manage money through digital assets, catering to both novice and experienced users. To maintain its dominant position, AAX has introduced zero fees for all sport and futures pairs.
Closing Thoughts
The cryptocurrency exchange landscape has grown a lot more competitive over the years, and all exchanges mentioned above try to provide something unique. Whether it is a remittance solution, zero-fees trading, or a way to introduce more privacy for transactions, the opportunities are endless in this industry. There is much more to cryptocurrencies than just exchanges them against one another or for fiat currencies.
Paying attention to these up-and-coming exchanges can be worthwhile, as it indicates which direction the industry may head in next. Decentralized solutions, layer-two scaling, and complying with the regulation will always continue to play a vital role in the future. Different approaches can yield unique results, but they will all try to advance the ecosystem, empower users, and aim for broader global adoption of cryptocurrencies.
via ZyCrypto