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10. Mt Gox - Hacked Mountain?

A sad story of a pioneer exchange, but what does 'Mt. Gox' mean?
Mt Gox actually stands for Magic The Gathering Online eXchange, the domain was originally set up as a site to exchange Magic The Gathering cards in a stock market like exchange by it's original creator Jed McCaleb.

9. ShapeShift - The Changeling

Swiss based ShapeShift essentially allows match up of buyer and seller to facilitate direct exchange one cryptocurrency for for another. Known for it's 'no accounts' stance, ShapeShift once blocked the entire city of New York (redirecting all traffic to this site), as a protest against the states 'BitLicense' legislation. Ironically they are now moving to a 'membership' model.

8. Binance - Echoes of the Wild West (also fast*)

Regulatory warnings in Japan, Hong Kong and Korea - have kept this exchange on the move. They seem to have finally settled in Malta, aka "Bitcoin Island". This notoriously free and easy exchange - $20k trades are ok with email only as ID - always lands top one or two exchange in the world.

The founder CZ, has come a long way, who as a teenager flipped burgers by day at McDonalds and tended a gas station by night. Although he still wears a 'Binance' hoodie when interviewed by Forbes.
Not to be limited, Binance is also a pretty powerful incubator, see Binance Labs.

*Binance boasts being able to process 1,400,000 orders per second, making it one of the fastest exchanges in the market today.

7. Dark Pool Exchange - Where the Whales Are?

Off-Exchange trading or 'dark pool' trading is coming to light in the crypto-sphere. Dark pool trading, which makes up a good (in some cases) 30–40 percent of traditional financial markets has made its way quite openly into the cryptocurrency arena. Exchanges like Kraken offer a place to make large sell intentions privately - so prices remain unaffected with large volume trades. Kraken has been offering this option since 2016.

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6. Maybe check under the Robinhood

4 million customer accounts, zero transaction fees. Since 2013 this interesting project has dealt in stock and options with the folk hero ethos. Since early this year they have launched a foray into cryptocurrency. Those seeking to join the merry men, be sure to know the lay of the land in Sherwood Forest.

5. The State Exchange - China

With an implicit ban on Cryptocurrency - legal for the individual to hold, illegal for the institution and technically to trade. The state is looking to launch its own currency that could compete with Bitcoin. Where will this put the majority Bitcoin miners Bitmain? Time will tell… In the meantime, the CCID and CSTC (China Electronic Information Industry Development Research Institute and the China Software Testing Centre), have released the Global Public Chain Technology Assessment (GPCTA) placing EOS, Ethereum and Komodo as 1,2 and 3 top coins.

4. Local Regulations and exchanges

What might be legal tender in Japan might not be legal tender in America. Like many nations around the world America has defined cryptocurrency as 'property', in Australia a similar view means profits made by cryptocurrency are treated as Capital Gains Tax (CGT) events.

Bitcoin is flat out illegal in Algeria, Egypt and Morocco - Northern Africa doesn't seem to be crypto friendly yet… Saudi Arabia warns against cryptocurrencies but there is a solitary Bitcoin ATM in Jubail.

Where cryptocurrencies and regulated exchanges are more the norm, there is still a lot of disagreement over whether they can be treated as currencies. In the EU for example there can be only one currency - The EU shut down EU member Estonia's attempt to introduce its own state-backed cryptocurrency called 'Estcoin'.

A different story in non-EU European Economic Area countries, Switzerland and Lichtenstein. In Switzerland, south of Zurich, the city of Zug has been termed "Crypto Valley" home to the Ethereum Foundation, and Cardano. Which then leads to the next point…

3. A possible peep into the future, Liechtenstein's Union Bank AG -

'the world's first fully licensed and regulated bank to issue its own security tokens in alignment with Liechtenstein's >regulatory authority FMA and, subsequently, its Union Bank Payment Coin. The Union Bank Payment Coin will be a stable >coin that is fully backed by a fiat currency - e.g. the Swiss Franc.'

—press release Union Bank AG.

2. Off-line Vaults - Gemini (Latin for Twins)

Perhaps the safest bet. The Winklevoss Twins cut up print outs of their private keys and stored them at multiple safety deposit boxes around the country. Their own virtual exchange Gemini is based on the same principles. You may know the Twins from the "The Social Network," bested by Zuckerberg in the film, in reality they settled for $65 million worth of Facebook shares - which they promptly used to set up Gemini. Recently famous for ETF awaiting approval and calling out Bill Gates to go short with Bitcoin. The pair also competed in the pair coxless rowing in the 2008 Beijing Olympic games.

1. Impossible Beast

Given the frontier and complex nature of the technology, there are many impossible combinations that come together for an exchange to work. From security to liquidity, to working with government tentative regulations and traditional models of finance - banks and fiats, it is almost an impossibility to see a fully functioning, operational, non-contentious exchange. It currently is… the impossible beast.
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