Questions to be answered

Explain in your own words what an Exchange is.

Differences between a Wallet and an Exchange.

Mention the advantages and disadvantages of DEX and CEX.

Have you used an Exchange before? tell us about your experience.

Explain in your own words what an Exchange is.

A crypto exchange is a platform that offers a space for users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies and tokens. It is usually based on the internet, and serves as the middle man between the two parties being the buyers and sellers of the crypto assets. we all know that we can not hold crypto coins physically, neither can we go and physically buy it in a physical market. So the crypto exchange platforms give us a way to buy and sell our crypto assets easily, with the option of using fiat currencies to purchase these crypto assets, and also enabling us to make exchanges between crypto assets too (that is exchanging one coin with another).

Crypto exchanges are very important in the crypto world because they act as catalyzing agents for crypto transactions because they provide the services of quick easy exchange between crypto assets, and there are two types of crypto exchange platforms, we have the:

• Decentralized Exchanges
• Centralized Exchanges.

Most exchanges come with an in-built crypto wallet where users are allowed to hodl coins and tokens in case they would like to trade it later, which seems logical too, because you might need to store the assets which you want to exchange first

Differences between a Wallet and an Exchange.

Crypto wallet	Crypto exchange
It's main purpose was to allow users "store" crypto assets	It's main purpose is to allow users buy and sell crypto assets and convert fiat currency to cryptocurrency
they are more secure and are more cautious about keys	exchanges are secure too, but are more prone to hacking
Wallets usually allow full access over your private keys	in the case of centralized exchanges, the user is not in total control of his private keys
If keys are lost, the assets stored in the wallet are lost too	if password or keys are lost, there is a "forgot password option with a 2 step verification to retrieve assets.

Mention the advantages and disadvantages of DEX and CEX.

I will be answering this question in a tabular manner for the most part, but let us dive in to what Decentralized and Centralized Exchanges really are shall we?

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Decentralized exchange(DEX)

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As the name suggests a decentralized exchange is one which is not owned by a governing body. It is Usually built on a blockchain platform, and provides all the necessary services an exchange would provide without any 3rd party interruptions, like the peer to peer transactions and other crypto exchanges. Some examples of decentralized cryptoexchanges are the Klayswap, MIDEX, DEX Sushiswap, e.t.c. Now let us go to the pros and cons of the Decentralized crypto exchange.

ADVANTAGES	DISADVANTAGES
Decentralized exchanges are more secure because the users are granted with more control over their security keys and there is no third party interfering with the keys.	The Decentralized exchanges can be harsh to beginners in the sense that it might be hard to navigate and understand how to access services on the platform.
Privacy is prioritized as decentralized exchanges do not require personal information and verification like KYC to register	If a user loses his keys, Every asset he was probably hodling on the exchange platform, and his account would be lost too, as there is no "forgot password" option.
Decentralized exchanges are useful to countries with anti-crypto laws, with features like the Peer to Peer trading which does not require the bank to purchase, and is just a trade between individuals, as it prioritizes decentralized transactions.	To exchange in DEX, a user must already possess the crypto assets because there isn't room for fiat payment.

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Centralized exchange(DEX)

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Centralized exchanges are more controlled by an authority or governing body. There is usually a company running the affairs of the platform, and this body is responsible for rules and regulations or terms and conditions that it has put in place for users to follow through with. They usually require KYC verification to establish a little more transparency most likely, Some examples of centralized crypto exchanges are Binance, Bittrex, Luno, e.t.c but let us now look at the pros and the cons of the centralized exchanges:

ADVANTAGES	DISADVANTAGES
The Centralized exchanges are still the most used exchanges, and are more trusted, research has shown that more than 90% of crypto exchanges occur on the centralized exchange platforms.	There is little privacy as centralized exchanges usually require KYC verification for account registration.
Most Centralized crypto exchanges allow users to acquire crypto assets using fiat currency.	Since these exchanges are centralized, they are very prone to hacking and malicious activities, because they usually have only one central server, which if taken over can be disastrous
Centralized exchanges offer so many functionalities in exchange and trading of cryptocurrency like margin trading and so on.	In countries where anti-crypto laws abound, some crucial features of the centralized exchanges are revoked, like the permission to use fiat currencies to purchase digital currencies. (Taking Nigeria as an example)

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Some other advantages

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• Centralized exchanges are very user friendly, some of them (like binance) offer beginner's courses to try and help users understand their way around the platform and how to fully access the features provided.

• Centralized exchanges provide high insurance for account compromise, with the "forgot password" option, and two step verification with other policies set in place to make sure that a user does not totally lose his account.

Have you used an Exchange before? tell us about your experience.

Of course i have used an exchange before, LMAO, if you are on steemit, you must have used the SBD to Steem Exchange option, and this is a simple example of a crypto exchange, but let me talk about my favorite crypto exchange platform being Binance. It is my favourite because it is pretty easy to understand, plus they try to teach you along the way. They are also packed with loads of functionalities and have the peer to peer option available. Using them so far has been really awesome.

Let us explore the Binance platform a little shall we: first we go to the officiali binance website and that will lead us to the page shown below. It looks so good on black!

Let us navigate to the wallet section where binance provides a crypto wallet for users to hodl coins with as i have shown below.

Binance also offers a futures trading option, where users can trade with futures using leverages, and it has the usd and coin sections

below is the peer to peer interface, that shows where we can sell our coins via peer to peer thanks to binance

exploring more, let us look at the various other trade options like the margin, spot and so on.

Binance still making effort to show me how to use it's platform

The Margin trade interface looks so good, with the chart directly supplied from trading view

Types of orders offered are shown below, and they range form the p2p orders to the spot to margin to futures and so on, as you can see, this exchange, though centralized is really awesome, it has so many irresistible features and i personally endorse it.

CONCLUSION

From doing this task, i reminded myself about how important crypto exchanges really are to the crypto world, and i also learnt a thing or two from exploring binance. The decentralized and centralized exchanges are very crucial, but i prefer the centralized even though it lacks privacy and is less secure. Thank you @sapwood for the lecture see you later!