We all remember the collapse of Magic The Gathering Online Exchange MtGox (Or Mount Gox as also heard between n00bs), then we got Mintpal and later Cryptsy. I personally lost 0.7 BTC at Cryptsy because: greed. I transferred BTC into Cryptsy trying to take advantage of the arbitrage. Only to find out there was arbitrage for a reason. People could not get out their BTC so they bought alts to get their money out, driving up the price of alts.
I also was there when Poloniex was hacked for the first time. And when Poloniex repaid the lost funds faith in humanity was restored. Now Poloniex seems to be in trouble again. Just take a look at the mentions their twitter account is getting. Also they closed their trollbox already a while ago. I am not saying they are hacked, but something smells fishy, very fishy. I am not going to trade there.
So where are we safe? I have been looking at the bitshares decentralized exchange. The lack of volume, coinpairs and speed is not appealing. Spreads are bigger as a result of the lack of volume and lack of marketmaking bots, but funds should be safe there. What other decentralized exchanges do we have?
We have BISQ, however, they lack volume. The software seems OK though. Other alternatives are not really there yet: NVO, EtherDelta,OpenANX are underdeveloped. Coincer seems only available for Linux. Promising seems Waves, ARK & SuperNET. These projects still have to fully blossom.
HeatLedger looks pretty cool as well, but there is also no market yet for alts. OpenLedger is also out there looking pretty similar to bitshares actually. Then we have BlackHalo with some beta wallets out for Windows and Linux. Haven't checked yet. ConsenSys recently announced their OmegaOne project, which still seems to have a long way to go. And the list goes on and on.
It seems many minds out there are seeing the problem with centralized exchanges - these can potentially damage the growth and adaption of cryptocurrencies. Exchanges need to be decentralized as well.
Please feel free to comment.
Untill next week.