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It was early 2019. I woke up in the morning to get the news that Cryptopia had been hacked and almost $11 million worth of assets were siphoned. Cryptopia was a New Zealand based cryptocurrency exchange with decent volume. They attempted to reopen the business but ultimately they were forced into liquidation. Bankruptcy proceedings for Cryptopia are pending at New Zealand High Court till now. I was holding some fund there and the hope for a recovery of the fund was almost lost. CEX or Centralized exchanges are prone to hacks. We keep on hearing news about CEX hacking regularly. I thank god that I didn’t hold a significant amount of assets in Cryptopia and I could absorb the loss. But since that time, I started to explore DEXs or decentralized exchanges.
DEX vs. CEX
My first DEX experience was with EtherDelta. The clumsy interface was irritating. Later I used IDEX and Switcheo and found those better. Yes, Ethereum DEXs are really slow and not very user friendly. The fluctuating gas fee is also another big problem. The recent Crypto Black Thursday crash provided a terrible experience to many small DEX traders as they ended up paying more gas fee than their trade volume. Recently an Ethereum DEX like Loopring has started to do a fantastic job by minimizing gas fee through layer-2 scalability solution ZkRollup. But Loopring is still in Beta and trading pairs are very less. Wonderful development is taking place in the DEX segment. The user interface of the DEXs has improved drastically over the last few years. The user interface is now comparable with CEXs. For a novice trader, it is still not extremely user friendly. But if you have traded in CEXs only throughout the years, you should definitely try DEXs. “Not your keys, not your coins”. It is important to hold your keys while you trade. Only a DEX can offer that service. DEXs are slowly gaining ground over CEXs. It is not going to be a short battle. Today’s step is tomorrow life. People will prefer a decentralized protocol over a centralized bank down the line. DEXs truly have the potential to replace CEXs in the future. Yes, entirely!
Newdex – single-chain to multi-chain trading
I like EOS DEXs. Newdex is my favourite EOS DEX. It was the first DEX dedicated entirely to the EOS ecosystem and it saw the day of the light in 2018. Newdex has very fast loading pages and the UI is simple. Various desktop and mobile wallets are compatible with Newdex. There is no problem of gas fee like an Ethereum DEX. CPU problem of EOS gets solved as Newdex offers 20 CPU free transactions daily. This is good enough reason to trade in Newdex. I use Newdex extensively to trade various EOS tokens. A few years back, Newdex shifted from single-chain to multi-chain. You can trade tokens of various blockchains like Tron, WAX, LYNX, TELOS, BOS etc. Newdex is cool and its user base is growing very fast. But something was missing! In a CEX, you can trade any listed coin/token irrespective of the blockchain. A CEX is designed like this. In a DEX, the same thing is not possible very easily. Changing chains in a multi-chain DEX is one solution but not very optimal always. The coolest solution can be cross-chain deposits and withdrawals. It can provide you with the ultimate ease of trading. Newdex has launched that option recently.
Newdex cross-chain deposits and withdrawals
Blockchains need to talk to each other. With Newdex’s cross-chain deposits and withdrawals, you can trade BTC, ETH and a few selected ERC20 tokens in their EOS DEX. You always hold your private keys during the process, so it is safe and secured. No hassles of switching accounts or chains give you a smooth trading experience. You just need to deposit your BTC, ETH or listed ERC20 token to Newdex escrow address and you receive pegged BTC, ETH or ERC20 assets of EOS chain. You can withdraw in BTC, ETH or ERC20 token form anytime.
Cross-chain deposit & withdrawal in Newdex - click on the picture to view in larger resolution
So what?
So what is the benefit? Newdex has a very regular taker & maker fee of 0.20%. With their VIP subscription, you can reduce the fee further. You can perform cross-chain trades in a decentralized way without KYC. Good enough reason to trade. Are you crazy about Ethereum DeFi tokens? Newdex has recently launched cross-chain swap for COMP and BAL. I guess they will be extending the cross-chain swap service to many other ERC20 tokens. There is no fee charged for cross-chain deposits. You can deposit a minimum amount like 0.03 COMP or 0.16 BAL. Cross-chain withdrawal fee is also very low like 0.015 COMP or 0.08 BAL. If you don’t like Ethereum DEXs due to high and arbitrary gas fees, trade your DeFi tokens on EOS blockchain with ultimate ease and minimum fees.
Cross-chain mechanism of Newdex can be game-changer. It’ll be interesting to see whether it attracts proper trading volume or not. Till now, the price of pegged assets on EOS chain are remaining in sync with original chain assets. Cross-chain technology is still at a nascent stage. It is only a matter of time that we’ll see abundant cross-chain trading options across various DEXs. The blockchain architects should actively develop such options for the end-user benefit. We need smart, fast and talkative DEXs. The ‘talk’ needs to be transmitted across different blockchains for mass adoption of DEXs.
Cheers!
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Note: The images (if not cited) are created by the author using screenshots and free vectors. DYOR before trying the above feature as every new technology comes with a potential risk.