Ethereum-powered decentralized exchange and trading platform openANX raised $14 million in the first hours of its OAX token sale. OpenANX wants to address two major problems in the cryptocurrency space: the barrier to entry for new cryptocurrency users, and transaction risk.In a press release sent to Crypto Insider, dated June 23, openANX states that more than 18,000,000 of the total 30,000,000 OAX tokens were sold in the first two hours, with an average of $750,000 USD every ten minutes.“We want to thank the community for its early and enthusiastic support of the openANX concept,” said Hugh Madden, technical director for openANX. “By participating in this project, backers are helping us build the technology needed to secure users’ digital assets with transparency and decentralization at the forefront. We are also very happy with the numbers of participants. We want to build a community and we currently have over 2,000 contributors, compared to 522 for Golem, 201 for BAT and Gnosis around 620. A vibrant community that is engaged with the project is a critical piece of the puzzle.”At the time of writing, the OAX token sale, started on June 22 and scheduled to remain open for a month, has raised more that $17 million.OAX is an ERC20 token developed to fuel the open-source decentralized exchange platform openANX, which provides an aggregated order book to increase liquidity, holds collateral for asset gateways to reduce credit risk, and features an off-chain, predetermined dispute resolution system governed by a DAO to maximize consumer protection.“In traditional financial markets, the ability to trade credit risk is taken for granted. In the cryptocurrency space, no one has figured out a way to address these issues, much to the detriment of the community,” said Madden in a previous press release sent to Crypto Insider. “Bitcoin and Ethereum have experienced a surge in interest recently, but the elephant in the room is that there’s still a lot to be done before digital assets and tokens are widely accepted, with consumer protection being one of the key challenges. With openANX, we’re taking significant strides to address consumer protection and making trading easy for all.”To bring transparency and openness to cryptocurrency markets. openANX plans to address and solve the challenges of bringing fiat currency and real world assets onto and off the blockchain, which according to the openANX team is an important problem not often addressed by other decentralized exchanges, and a significant hurdle for mass adoption of cryptocurrencies. “Additionally, the openANX platform will enable users to have full custody of their private keys in digital token transactions,” stated a previous press release. “These features should substantially decrease the risks currently involved in cryptocurrency markets.”The launch of openANX is managed by ANX International, a Hong Kong based fintech company, founded in 2013, which specializes in blockchain technology.In a video interview published by Bloomberg, ANX International co-founder and CEO Ken Lo explains how the openANX platform works and how it allows customers to create digital assets like loyalty points and tokens. The interview includes thoughts on what’s next for blockchain technology.