Centralized exchanges are how many of us get started with cryptocurrency, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But as we’ve repeatedly pointed out on this blog, they are not necessarily the best way to get the coins you want, and they are definitely not the best place to store your cryptocurrency holdings. But for a long time, there really were not alternatives. Then non-custodial instant exchanges came along. What this means is that users can trade cryptocurrencies directly from their own wallets, without needing to store them on a centralized exchange which has access to their private keys. One of the first products built around this idea was ShapeShift.io which has inspired many newer competitors, but remains one of the more well-known instant exchanges. How does Faast stack up against ShapeShift? Let’s compare the most important features and find out!

ShapeShift Overview

Founded in 2014, ShapeShift was designed to be a safer and more private way to trade cryptocurrencies, and in this respect, it was successful. By using ShapeShift, crypto traders no longer had to worry about their funds getting stolen, because they could now trade with others without needing to send it to an exchange first. This might sound commonplace today but it was a quite innovative idea at the time.

Let’s say you have some BTC, but you want to swap some for a different coin. ShapeShift allows you to choose which cryptocurrency you want, enter your deposit address and receiving address, click a button, and it’s on its way. One thing that distinguishes ShapeShift from other token swapping services is that it supports cross-chain trading (BTC for ERC20 tokens, and vice versa, etc.).

According to ShapeShift’s website, the service supports 54 different cryptocurrencies. However, as of 9/13/18, 20 of them are listed as temporarily unavailable, leaving you with only 34 choices. In addition to this, no stable coins are currently supported.

For those 34 coins, ShapeShift does what it is designed to do, but beyond that, its features are rather limited. It does not permit simultaneous trades, and there’s no portfolio management or visualization tools.

One of ShapeShift’s big selling points for a long time had been privacy, since it did not require users to create an account. However, the company recently announced that they are moving away from this model, much to the chagrin of many traders in the cryptocurrency world.

Let’s break down the features included and blockchains supported below:

Blockchains Supported: BTC, BCH, DCR, QTUM, DASH, DOGE, XMR, XRP, LTC, ETH & ERC20 Tokens.

Total cryptocurrencies listed as of 9/13/18 34 (with an additional 20 listed as “temporarily unavailable”)

Token to token swaps allowed? Yes

Cross-chain trading support? Yes

Multiple simultaneous trades? No

Portfolio management/visualization tools? No

Stablecoin support? No

API? Yes

Account required? Optional for now, soon to be mandatory

Faast Overview

As we said before, ShapeShift came first, and it was a pretty mind-blowing idea at the time. Part of what inspired us to create Faast in the first place was to build on ShapeShift’s success by adding new ideas, and improving on things we knew could be done better.

Similar to ShapeShift, Faast is a non-custodial instant exchange. Faast allows you to enter your deposit and receiving addresses and swap one cryptocurrency for another, including BTC and ETH/Token cross-chain transactions. However, there are some important differences between our product and ShapeShift that must be pointed out.

While ShapeShift is currently limited to 34 cryptocurrencies, Faast supports over 100 at this time. We also plan to add support for over 240 additional currencies in the near future. If building a strong, diversified portfolio is your goal, Faast is a much better way to achieve that.

Speaking of portfolios, we knew when we were building Faast that we wanted to create more than just another non-custodial exchange. There’s already more than one company doing this and we did not want to create just another “me too” product.

That’s why we built Faast to not only be a non-custodial exchange, but a comprehensive portfolio management tool as well.

With Faast, you can connect multiple wallets at once, and we instantly generate a visual graph depicting your holdings. You can view your whole portfolio at once, or one wallet at a time. Each asset is broken down by weight, percentage, units and price in USD.

Plus, our unique “swap” tool features a unique click and drag slider interface that allows you to make multiple trades simultaneously. Using Faast you can rebalance your portfolio and add 10 different tokens to your wallet at once, all with just the click of a button. You can just plug in your wallet and go — no accounts or aggravation required.

Of course, with the recent downturn in crypto prices, you’ll want to protect yourself against risk as well. That’s why we listed TrueUSD (TUSD), a stablecoin linked 1 to 1 to the US dollar. With TUSD, you can lock in your gains when prices are high, then jump back in when the market drops. Or if you just want to get out of other cryptocurrencies entirely, just swap your portfolio for TUSD and keep it in your wallet, then you’ll have dollars ready to go, and you can avoid the hassle of transferring fiat currency to a centralized exchange first.

Faast features overview:

Blockchains Supported: BTC, ETH & ERC20 Tokens. (BCH, ZEC, EOS, NEO, LTC & more coming soon)

Total Cryptocurrencies listed as of 9/13/18: 104 active (+245 more coming soon)

Token to Token trades allowed? Yes

Cross-chain trading support? Yes

Multiple Simultaneous Trades? Yes

Hardware wallet support? Yes

API? Yes

Stable coin support? Yes (TrueUSD)

Account required? No

ShapeShift VS Faast: Bottom Line

The one area where ShapeShift has an advantage over us at this time is the fact that it supports a variety of different blockchains, but that advantage won’t last forever. When we were building Faast, we knew we had to start with Bitcoin and ERC20 support first, since the overwhelming majority of tokens are still built on Ethereum. Of course, that may not always be the case, which is why we are planning to add support for many more blockchains in the near future. Our ultimate vision is to provide our users with easy access to any cryptocurrency on any blockchain they wish, and we’re hard at work on making that a reality.

But as things stand right now, the choice is clear: for serious cryptocurrency investors and traders, Faast is a much more multidimensional and comprehensive tool.

Give it a try and see yourself what thousands of new Faast users have discovered over the past few months: there’s a new game in town, and it’s raising the bar for what a non-custodial instant exchange should be.

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