From time to time, we listen about hacked cryptocurrency exchanges, and thousands of dollars are lost. Many think that this is a problem, of the cryptocurrency, but it is a centralization problem. Those exchanges, held investors assets in their own wallets. This, has the advantage, to transact, without blockchain fees. It has, although, a great disadvantage. The assets, are not controlled by the investors, but are kept, in the exchange wallets. If there is a problem, the assets are just lost.

The solution to this problem, is the decentralized exchange. In this case, the advantage is that the assets, remain in an investor controlled wallet, until, they have to be sent, for a transaction. The disadvantage is, that blockchain fees, have to be paid, for each transaction. A minor hassle, compared to the loss of funds. Let's see four of the decentralized exchanges, available now.

Bisq (aka Bitsquare)

Bisq, is an application, that must be installed on a computer or device, to let the user transact, in the market. It is peer to peer, so there is no central server to rely on. This, is very good, because it offers, the resilience needed, for a cryptocurrency market to be autonomous. The market is instantly accessible, without any registration or account. It is a global P2P network of users, running the application. The software supports multi-signature wallets, so you can trade, without depositing any funds.

Personal identification, is only needed, when the other party of the trade needs it. The application, is open source, so the code can be checked, by anyone. Bisq has decentralized governance, to resolve disputes, between users. This, makes the exchange self-sustaining, and censorship resistant.

More about Bisq:https://bisq.network/

Cryptobridge

Cryptobridge, is a gateway, to the Bitshares digital asset exchange. Only the user has access to his Bitshares private keys. Because of the Bitshares platform, the order-books and the trades, are decentralized and transparent. There are a lot of altcoins and tokens supported. The performance is very high, because a Graphene blockchain is used, with the ability to support a hundred thousand transactions per second.

The exchange, has it's own coin, called Bridgecoin. With the coin, you can have a literal stake, in the success of Cryptobridge, as a percentage of the trading fees revenue. The team avoided an initial coin offering, and self-funded the project's launch.

More about Cryptobridge:https://crypto-bridge.org/

Waves Dex

Waves Dex, is a decentralized exchange, built into the Waves platform. The exchange, let's the users to trade their tokens. The tokens can be Waves, Bitcoin and many others. Orders are paired on a centralized basis by Matcher nodes. Those nodes, execute a trade, but has no access to the trader's funds. The trade is settled, with a blockchain transaction. You can have a passive income, if you want to run a Matcher node. It also helps decentralization of the network. To use the exchange, it is required, to download the waves client.

More about Waves Dex: https://wavesplatform.com/

Stellar Dex

Stellar Dex, is a decentralized exchange. Like other decentralized exchanges, let's users trade privately and securely. The interface, like others, show the order book, and a graph of the latest transaction prices and volumes. There are no withdrawal fees, and you cannot deposit fiat currencies. The servers, are spun all over the world, so there is a minimal risk of downtime.

More about Stellar Dex: https://www.cryptowisser.com/exchange/stellar-dex/

There are many more decentralized exchanges, that can be found over the internet. If you want to trade, without the fear of hackers, the use of a decentralized exchange, is a must.