There was speculation for some time about when Bancor would be creating their decentralized exchange for EOS like they currently have on Ethereum. There were no definite dates. They just told us “soon.”

Well, it seems that soon has come. Bancor has officially announced BancorX and it’s more than anyone really anticipated. It was anticipated that Bancor would only release a platform that would allow the instant transfers for EOS tokens with EOS. However, BancorX is planning on having cross-chain swaps between EOS and Ethereum and their respective tokens.

Bancor was initially built for Ethereum, but they have taken an interest in EOS since the start of this year. Bancor now sees itself as a cross-chain liquidity platform. Its smart contracts known as relays will allow for the instant conversions between EOS tokens. This is done without the need to deposit funds and there is no manual order matching between buyers and sellers. Instead, the Bancor protocol does this aspect of trading for you — and soon, it will be available for conversion from ETH tokens to EOS tokens.

BancorX is thus a step in the right direction in a space that has become increasingly stratified between its many consensus algorithms and blockchains. While they are still largely incompatible, the linkage between EOS and ETH for trading might be the beginning of more cross-chain trading and so on.

To trade on BancorX, all one needs is Scatter which is a built-in Chrome extension for EOS wallets and their tokens. The project spawned from a partnership with Bancor’s own Block Producer for EOS, LiquidEOS. Bancor claims that trading on EOS has a few advantages over Bancor’s existing exchange on Ethereum. For example, there are 1-second transactions as opposed to 10-second ones. There are also NO transaction fees unlike on Ethereum where one has to still pay for gas costs. And finally, there is no front-running risk since EOS transactions are never prioritized based on the expended gas fees. Therefore, EOS brings some new benefits to the table that differentiates it from the ETH Bancor project.

Since launching on Ethereum, Bancor has processed some $1.5 billion in token conversions since its launch. Naturally, they hope to extend this success to EOS in a decentralized exchange that is the first of its kind on the platform. Some of the EOS tokens that will go live on BancorX include: Everipedia (IQ), MEET.ONE (MEET), Lumeos (LUME), HorusPay (HORUS), Chaince (CET), DEOS (DEOS), and many others.

As of now, the BancorX release is only on TestNet but they plan to roll out the full version for commercial use quite soon.