For some people, decentralized exchanges, or peer to peer trading is always the best option. There are many reasons why that happens, but we can conclude that decentralized exchanges or centralized exchanges are not enough. Which is why, peer to peer trading platforms, such as LocalBitcoins or Paxful exist.
Problem is nearly every peer to peer trading platform only support Bitcoin. This brings a lot of problems, especially to those who want to trade other currencies in a decentralized way, such as buying XRP or selling Ethereum. Based on my understanding, this key problem is the reason why XCH4NGE exist.
What is XCH4NGE? What makes them different from other crypto peers to peer trading platform? You can find it below.
P2P Platform In General
Peer to peer trading essentially is a trading process between two person. In this process, a third-party can act as an escrow, so that in theory, a buyer will get the coins and seller get the money. A platform like LocalBitcoins serves such purpose, helping people to trade Bitcoin in a decentralized way.
In general, there are at least $10 millions of Bitcoin being traded in the p2p trading platform. Stats from Coindance show this. It reached a peak at the January 2018 and then stays around $40 million volume per week till this month. This stats show us that there's a tremendous amount of Bitcoin being traded via P2P trading.
However, this doesn't mean the status quo is perfect. There are several problems that exist in the market. First of all, a buyer or seller account from LocalBitcoins can be bought easily. This unethical practice can cause several issues such as difficulty to determine which traders that really has a good reputation. It's difficult to find a trustable buyer/seller because someone might have bought it from the past owner.
LocalBitcoins trading volume according to Coindance.
Another issue, like what I've mentioned above, is the lack of coins options to trade. LocalBitcoins, Paxful, Hodlhodl only support Bitcoin, while other decentralized exchanges like Forkdelta lack liquidity. On top of that, there's no instant way for a trader who use DEX to exchange to fiat easily, therefore it's quite difficult to use fiat to buy or sell cryptocurrency.
Centralized exchanges might be an option, but they require extensive KYC process that might not be available for some users. They also limit users from various countries. So the option is limited, while there is a lot of demand for P2P trading.
XCH4NGE Platform
XCH4NGE aims to solve those key problems. They provide people with the opportunity to access fiat directly (with KYC) and provide more than just Bitcoin to trade. They offer some features like below:
- Buy Bitcoin / Sell Bitcoin
- Buy Ethereum / Sell Ethereum
- Buy Bitcoin Cash / Sell Bitcoin Cash
- Buy Litecoin / Sell Litecoin
- Buy XRP / Sell XRP
Every trade will have their own terms & conditions, they also have a fee structure that you can access transparently. In general, the fees are reasonable, it won't take a lot of your trade. Withdrawal fees are also good, definitely worth to check it out.
Started to serve customers in the UK, now XCH4NGE wants to expand their business across many countries (though their website still lists the UK only, which I suppose will be updated in due time). From the information that I get, they will expand their business to Australia, Africa, China, India, USA, Russia, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, South Africa. So there, you have Europe, Asia, and other continents. The goal is ambitious, isn't it?
So what about the platform? Is it good?
I've registered on XCH4NGE and I can say it's quite easy to use. The main theme is white and blue, you have a navigation menu on your top right where you can access your wallets, profile, and so on. In terms of security, they give you a 2FA option which should be enough to protect your account from hacking.
In order to make our list a trade here, you can select the 'Buy' option from the top right menu, or open your wallets and click 'Sell' on the asset that you want to sell. It's quick and easy to do, which is a good thing for customers acquisition. If we compare it to other famous P2P platforms, the UX might not be that good, but it is enough and I believe they would continue to improve it in due time if they want the platform to succeed.
Conclusions
So then, why should you try or use this exchange? There are several reasons:
- It offers the opportunity to trade more coins than just Bitcoin.
- It provides escrow service for you (while this means you must 'trust' them to hold your coins.
- It offers enough security option to protect your account from hacking (2FA, SSL, etc).
- Competitive fees compared to other exchange.
- Account trading would be difficult (or even impossible) because there's KYC, so it's easier to distinguish bad or good trader.
So that's it. But if you want to check them out before using them, then you can do that by clicking these links below:
Disclaimer
The writer of this article, also known as joniboini in Bitcointalk, is not related in anyway to XCH4NGE. This article is created for educational purpose. Reader should do further due diligence if they want to use the services offered by XCH4NGE.