At Shiftly, we are working hard on building a one-click trading, truly decentralized exchange — think of a decentralized Shapeshift — that will enable users to seamlessly trade crypto-assets (ERC-20/721) without the risks and limitations associated with centralized exchanges.

In this article, we will come back on the main reasons why we have chosen the 0x protocol as the basis of our architecture.

Hold on, what is Shiftly?

Shiftly.io is an instant ERC20 tokens exchange with a hybrid technology as fast as centralized exchanges. Enter the amount of desired tokens and let the magic happen. We are doing the rest for you. Transact assets in almost no time in a decentralized fashion with our efficient off-chain approach for our matching engine.

Feel free to learn more about us on our Website, through our previous blog posts or by joining our Telegram, Slack or Reddit.

Why are we building on top of 0x?

1. The 0x Relayer Model

The 0x relayer model allows us to to match transactions off-chain and to settle them on-chain in a frictionless manner. Users can trade without the need of opening an account, making a deposit or wondering about any potential withdrawal fees. In addition, 0x offers the highest level of security through decentralization: users remain in total custody of their funds.

No accounts. No Deposits. No Middlemen.

2. Shared Liquidity Network and Interoperability

The 0x relayer model also provides us with liquidity through 0x’s shared liquidity pool. In our case, 0x Connect allows us to interact with other relayers implementing the Standard Relayer API (such as Radar Relay or ERC DEX) and who have an open order book.

Further, 0x’s interoperability among dApps and relayers drives network effects around liquidity that will be beneficial to all parties involved. This shared liquidity network allows us to have access to liquidity from day one and to execute trades for a large number of tokens without the need of large upfront capital.

3. Ecosystem development

The 0x ecosystem has been developing at a fast-pace. We have witnessed a growing number of exchanges and dApp’s implementing 0x over the last year, as well as a steady growth in trade volume.Here are a few figures highlighting this increasing adoption:

We are embracing this amazing development, the support that 0x gives to its community of developers and all the projects that contribute to a greater adoption.

Looking ahead: 0x V2

We are very excited with the release of the 0x protocol V2 which will unveil a set of great updates relevant to our DEX concept. At Shiftly, we are especially interested in the following news:

4. Forwarding contracts

WETH abstraction with forwarding contracts:

With forwarding contracts, users will be able to send ETH along with the orders they want to fill, the forwarding contract will wrap the ETH and fill the orders in one single transaction.

This update (open source contract) will eliminate the need for takers to wrap ETH into WETH. We believe that this update will remove an important on-boarding barrier that most decentralized exchange have right now.

Being able to remove the ETH to WETH wrapping step in our UI will make the trade process smoother for our users.

5. ERC-721 Support

With the recent explosion of collectible assets (NFT’s), another update that we are looking forward is the support for ERC-721 tokens. We are already looking into ways to implement support for collectible assets, but we will keep you updated about that in a later blog post.

You can learn more about the upcoming V2 release here.

Let’s sum up!

At the core layer of our architecture, 0x provides us with an efficient, simple and riskless way of handling customer transactions and settlements without having the need of taking custody of our client’s assets.

In addition, 0x’s shared liquidity network provides us with liquidity from day one for a wide number of tokens, which was essential to us. The upcoming release of 0x V2 brings a lot of great updates that match our needs and that we are looking forward to implement: forwarding contracts, ERC-721 support and Atomic Order Matching and Batch Settlement.

Finally, we’re thrilled to be part of 0x’s ecosystem and we’re looking forward to bring our contribution and make it grow together.

Thanks to 0x team for their amazing work and support!