Binance Releases a Sneak Peek into the Company’s First Decentralized Exchange
| Updatedby Bhushan Akolkar · 3 min read
Binance has currently released a “rough, pre-alpha” of the decentralized exchange, which is currently only client-based with no working graphical user-interface.
On Thursday, August 9, Binance unveiled the first glimpses into the company’s first decentralized cryptocurrency exchange. Binance, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in terms of trading volumes has been working on this project since the beginning of this year.
Earlier in March 2018, Binance unveiled the Binance Chain – public blockchain platform with an aim to facilitate customers to transfer and trade digital currency assets without the need for a centralized operator in between. The company noted:
“Binance Chain will mainly focus on the transfer and trading of blockchain assets, as well as provide new possibilities for the future flow of blockchain assets.”
Yesterday, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao demonstrated and provided short glimpses into the Binance Decentralized Exchange and the Binance Chain in he tweet. You can click the YouTube link in the below tweet where Zhao is addressing all his viewers.
A first (rough, pre-alpha) demo of the Binance Decentralized Exchange (DEX), showing issuing, listing and trading of tokens. All cli based, no GUI yet. A small step for #BinanceChain, a big step for #binance. https://t.co/2aXkR0gclP
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) August 9, 2018
In the initial address Zhao tells his viewers:
“Today, I have something really exciting to share with you guys. This will be the first demo for the Binance Decentralized Exchange, the Binance Chain.” He then also appreciates the developer team for staying ahead of the schedule while saying “I thought this would happen one to two months later or more but again, the team delivered early.”
To be noted, this is just the “rough, pre-alpha” version of the decentralized exchange and the platform is currently only client-based with no working graphical user-interface. Zhao also says:
“That is a very casual, early demo for [sic] the Binance Chain.. There is still tons of work to be done to turn it into a final product. The team is working very aggressively [on accomplishing that]. Nevertheless, this is a major milestone for Binance Chain.”
However, Binance is not the first player in the crypto industry to work on a decentralized exchange. Huobi is also working on a decentralized open-source blockchain platform and has already pumped over $100 million into this project.
The demand for decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges has suddenly increased after several centralized exchanges and wallet services lost millions of dollars of the customer’s funds getting hacked.
Decentralized exchanges are considered to be more secure in comparison to its centralized counterparts as they allow the users to retain the ownership of their digital currency tokens and private keys.
Decentralization prevents storing of tokens at one particular place thereby making it less vulnerable to external attacks. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has several times pressed the need of having a decentralized exchange.
Earlier this week, Binance announced the acquisition of Ethereum Trust Wallet which is a very popular open-source decentralized wallet supporting Ethereum and over 20000 other digital tokens. At the time of announcement Zhao said that he wants to integrate this Trust Wallet as a default wallet on the decentralized exchange.
“The company has built a reputation for security and has held itself to the guiding principles that it will never access user wallets, hold private keys, and ask for personal information. The Trust Wallet brand and team will retain the autonomy and freedom to develop the core product while benefiting from the increased synergy from Binance,” he further added.
