Four weeks ago I found out about Blockport. A new and upcoming crypto currency exchange. Like we don’t already have enough options was my first thought, but I figured.. let’s dive in and do some research.

Blockport is currently in alpha: https://alpha.blockport.io/

They plan on releasing the first beta version of their platform in March 2018.

Please refer to the roadmap on https://blockport.io/ to find out more about their planned releases.

Blockport Alpha

Blockport is (according to their website) going to be a hybrid-decentralized exchange with a strong focus on user-friendliness, social trading features and building a knowledge sharing community. Hybrid means that you hold your private keys and your funds will never leave your wallet while trades are settled off-chain and through connected exchanges. Although the backend is somewhat complex they ensure that their members can easily buy, sell and store crypto with a few clicks.

The problem

It’s difficult for beginners to start trading crypto currencies. Current platforms are complex, because they often lack usability, transparency and education. As a result, many people are discouraged to get started in the crypto economy.

Coinbase is easy for beginners, but Coinbase has a monopoly position and this is a major issue. The community needs more platforms that are as easy to use as Coinbase and have all the exchange features an experienced trader uses. Blockport could very well be one of the new big players in the game.

The mission

Blockport is building a user-friendly crypto exchange that combines social trading with a hybrid-decentralized architecture to help people safely trade crypto assets. They bridge the gap between the crypto economy and the traditional world of finance to shift towards a digital and decentralized society.

How is Blockport different from other exchanges?

Blockport focuses on user-friendliness and simplicity, just like Coinbase does. This means that anyone, beginner or advanced, can use the Blockport exchange without having any prior knowledge or experience with trading. Unlike most other exchanges, Blockport is not just about trading. As a social platform, they will be implementing social trading and knowledge sharing features in the core of their exchange. We’ll get to this in a little bit. Additionally, they offer their members the best of both worlds by combining centralized trading with decentralized storing of crypto assets.

This is what the current market is missing. The robustness of centralized systems and the security of decentralized storing. Let’s give power back to the people. You own your crypto assets and this completely removes the risk of an exchange getting hacked and all its users’ funds getting stolen (Mt. Gox, Bitstamp, Bitfinex and just recently Coincheck, the list goes on).

So, how does Blockport work?

Let’s take a look at the value of Blockport and how they plan on disrupting the crypto market.

1. Everyone is able to trade cryptocurrencies

The Blockport trading platform is designed for both beginners and advanced traders. No prior knowledge of trading or experience with cryptocurrencies is required when you use the Blockport platform.

You can buy your first cryptocurrencies and instantly access them through your personal dashboard, similar to how you may buy on Coinbase.

Screenshot from the Blockport Alpha. Subject to change.

2. Follow experienced traders and copy their moves

Learn from other experienced traders on the Blockport platform. Browse through the list of available traders, check their risk indicators, and follow or copy their trading activities.

Once you are confident enough, you can start trading yourself and earn Blockport Tokens (BPT) as a reward when other members follow you.

Let’s explain how this works:

Bob decides to trade 40% of his BTC for Ethereum (ETH) and makes a trade through the Trade Portal. Alice has allocated 50% of her total portfolio to follow Bob and thus her account will automatically make trades relative to Bob’s trades so that Alice trades 20% of her total BTC for ETH.

After the trade, Bob’s portfolio has changed from 100% BTC to 60% BTC and 40% ETH. Due to the 50% of Alice’s portfolio that wasn’t following Bob, her portfolio respectively changed to 30% BTC and 20% ETH. This example describes the basic fundamentals of following an other member’s portfolio.

3. Trade on multiple exchanges

The Blockport trading platform will be connected with multiple crypto exchanges. This allows you to benefit from different markets in a single dashboard.

When you initiate a trade, the trading engine will find the best prices and distribute your order across multiple exchanges.

This means you will be able to buy pretty much any token that’s on any (connected) exchange without ever leaving the Blockport platform!

Trading view screenshot from the Blockport Alpha.

4. You own the private keys!

Blockport enables you to host your funds in a personal wallet on the blockchain. Keeping you in charge of your investment.

When you initiate a trade, your funds will never leave your wallet, until the atomic swap is successful. As a result, you are less susceptible to fraud and hacking.

The Blockport token: BPT

Blockport Tokens (BPT) are ERC20 standard tokens created on the Ethereum blockchain. They are utility tokens that are used to pay for multiple functionalities within the Blockport platform.

Total token supply: 69,440,000 BPT

Tokens sold: 49,600,000 BPT (71.4%)

With the internal micro-economy, the entire value of the system grows when the number of users increases. Additionally, the value of the whole system increases by incentivizing members to use BPT for the payment of trading fees and social trading functionalities. This means that the valye of the BPT token should essentially rise in value when Blockport grows its user base.

BPT can be used to pay for premium services such as: following or copying other members’ portfolios and discounted trading fees (it’s currently unknow what these discounts will be). It is not mandatory for Blockport members to own BPT, however, members are not able to use the social features without them!

The crypto economic mechanisms of BPT are visualized in the figure below, taken from the whitepaper:

Blockport releases BPT from the reserve and sells them to members through the Token Shop. Blockport will receive income in fiat or crypto for selling BPT in the Token Shop. Members can buy BPT at the Token Shop at all times. Tokens are sold to members that wish to fill their stock of BPT and are paid with fiat or cryptocurrency. This causes an upward pressure on BPT demand. Blockport creates a micro-economy where members can pay other members in BPT for copying their crypto portfolio. A large part (90%) of this fee is received by the portfolio-sharing member, and the remaining (10%) of the fee represents the amount received by Blockport for facilitating the social trading service. The social trading token utility causes an upward pressure on BPT’s demand, and the social trading fee received by Blockport causes a downward pressure on BPT’s supply. Members can use BPT to pay for discounted trading fees. Discounted trading fees causes an upward pressure on BPT demand. Order costs are mainly covered by income received from collected trading fees from members. Trading fees can be paid in BPT, fiat or cryptocurrency. Additional income is received from token sales and social trading fees.

Using an exchange token for discounts is not new (BNB, KCS, BIX..), but all the planned features add a whole new dimension to the value of exchange utility tokens.

Conclusion

Blockport has not launched yet. The ICO just ended (within just 13 minutes) and they’re looking to launch the beta in March 2018.

The current roadmap ends in Q1 2019, so there’s a long way to go before they release all their planned features and platform version, but I think Blockport has tremendous growth potential.

If you can handle the risk investing in an unproven platform, but with potentially huge upside if they do prove everything they are working on, Blockport is something you could (and should) look into.

I tried to keep this article as generic as possible, so you can form your own opinion regarding the value of Blockport and its token. I talked about how Blockport works, or rather, will work and how the model of their utility token works. Maybe we’ll talk about the established partnerships and the team behind Blockport another time ;)

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