A while back, we announced that we were in discussions with a top 50 exchange. Today we would like to shed some light on what has been happening with this situation.



We believe it’s important to fully explain our deliberations over exchanges. By doing so, we seek to reaffirm community confidence about the due diligence we’re taking with regard to our long-term goals.



As some team members will recall, we actually began preparations to expand our exchange offerings back in September of 2018. At the time, the community was talking about listing on Kucoin and this was presented internally as an option by the founders. As such, in anticipation of expanding to new exchanges, we produced an updated wallet and enhanced our current network configuration to achieve higher security standards.



My proposed targets were mid-level exchanges, as I’m well aware of the challenges associated with getting listed on larger exchanges. From my point of view, getting listed on the larger exchanges was an unrealistic goal and will remain so until we at least achieve patent pending or agree to pay massive listing fees.



Although I advised against it at the time, four larger exchanges were contacted for listing: Their eventual responses: Bittrex and Binance both passed on us, essentially stating that they want to see more information first (this is a responsible and acceptable answer). However, we never disclosed the other two exchanges, Huobi and HITBTC. While Huobi never responded to us, HITBTC stated that they would list us for 60 BTC per coin (XBY and XFUEL). Recognizing that we are working towards having patent pending technology, I simply thanked them for their offer and left the door open for future considerations.



Moving forward, the three announcements we made in April attracted the attention of some Asian-based exchanges (a very good thing!). Our due diligence team went into immediate action and we quickly realized that the first exchange was not attractive enough to raise the required BTC listing fee (they had a slow exchange, an amateur looking interface, and a negative reputation). As with HITBTC, we thanked them for their time so as to keep the door open to future opportunities.



The other exchange came through our due diligence exercises with much better marks. We certainly had high hopes for getting listed with them. Unfortunately, their sales agent lead us to believe we could get listed for 2 BTC or less, a far cry from the minimum 5 BTC (plus another 3 BTC of our own coins) they were willing to accept during negotiations.



We spent a fair amount of time in discussions with them and have kept the door open to additional counteroffers. However, we explained to them that we were not in a position to raise 5 BTC from our community at present. We left it open that we would continue negotiations with them after we have patent pending in place.



At present, revealing which exchanges we are considering would likely be counterproductive. As this information can be used against us, we believe it’s prudent to keep these cards close to our chest.



Furthermore, the Management Group contends that getting listed on larger exchanges is simply not feasible at present (at least until patent pending is in place). Instead, they’re urging team members to place a renewed focus on DEX projects. Accordingly, several new videos promoting Waves and the usage tutorials for Waves are already in planning. Their focus will be to increase usage and adaptation of the XTRABYTES Waves Gateway.



Moving forward, we propose a community initiative designed to expand our exchange options. We believe this can be best handled through a committee of representatives, with one vetted member serving as a liaison between the committee and the XTRABYTES Exchange Manager, JamesJ.



Additional information about this proposal will follow in a separate announcement.

