Exchanges are the achilles heel of the cryptocurrency world. Unlike a stock market, where securities are held by a custodian bank and your cash would be in your bank account, in many cryptocurrency exchanges, the exchange itself acts like a custodian of funds.

This puts cryptocurrency exchange users at a high level of risk. It is a strange irony when cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin themselves are decentralised, but exchanges are not.

Now a decentralized exchange aims to change all of this. NVO.io aims to create a decentralized exchange product that will reduce the risk that users are exposed to and will be easy for them to use on a day-to-day basis.

Isn’t it just another new exchange?

NVO is different from existing exchanges. In this model the cryptocurrencies will remain under the control of the user and will only be exchanged with other users in a P2P model. In order to put this in operation NVO will utilise a multi-currency wallet, which will store keys on user devices.

A validator on the Safenetwork by Maidsafe will make sure that transactions are valid before any exchange is actually made. This way the entire operation is fully decentralised and anonymous.

Says Ton Bi, CEO and Founder of NVO about how their product is different from current exchanges:

“Assets can be exchanged directly from secure storage instead of having to deposit and withdraw from a centralized exchange. When users exchange with NVO, all assets are under their control even during exchange. This isn’t possible with centralized exchanges. Users can enable as many different assets as they want through an open plugins system and developers can add assets as well. We will keep the user experience simple and straightforward, so this won’t end up being a developers only product.”

- What is NVO? from NVO on Vimeo.

The Token System of NVO explained

NVO will create tokens called NVOT, which will be sold to the public through the crowdsale campaign starting May 22, 2017. We have covered the release of these tokens in great detail in a press release carried by Cointelegraph.

The tokens will be distributed between July 1, 2017 to July 14, 2017. The token will be listed on multiple exchanges including NVO exchange after they are distributed to crowdsale users. 15 million NVOT will be generated in total and available for sale. 50% of all fees per trade on the exchange will be sent to addresses with NVOT on a weekly basis in the form of NVOS after the NVO exchange is live.

NVOS will have a fixed price of US$ 0.99 and can be traded for Bitcoin using Counterparty exchange or through the validator for no fee. NVOT price will be decided by the markets.

The upcoming launch of NVO wallet and exchange

Even as the NVOT token crowdsale is all set to happen, it is expected that the wallet will be ready for use in 2-4 months with the NVO exchange starting operations in the coming 6-8 months.

The wallet will be available on multiple platforms like Mac 64x, Windows 64x, Linux 64 x, iOS and Android. The good thing about the NVO wallet is that it will help users move funds within their devices be they be desktops or mobile phones at no cost.

As for trading fees, there is a minor fee of 0.2% per trade. NVO will be partnering up with market makers to provide liquidity for the exchange when it is launched.

Is NVO about to change the exchange game?

A lot of people simply have no choice but to use a centralised exchange to trade cryptocurrencies at the moment. NVO is certainly bringing an alternative to the table. The exchange promises a streamlined user flow that would reduce the learning curve for users and the integrated exchange in the wallet is certainly a step in the right direction.

The challenge for the exchange would be to gain user trust but with traditional exchanges having their own vulnerabilities, the users may just be tempted to try the alternative and experience for themselves the benefits of a decentralized exchange.

A favorable factor for NVO is the open-source nature of their wallet, which allow for developers to add different assets and it being a dynamic platform means utilities from other projects like XRP fiat gateway can be added to the wallet. The possibilities are thus endless and the potential real for NVO to be a game changer.