Waves Platform users can now access the DEX within the officially launched lite client GUI — allowing anyone to use it without any additional technical knowledge or time-consuming blockchain downloads.

Along with bitcoin and fiat gateways, this will complete the initial tranche of functionality pledged at the project’s crowdfund and that businesses need in order to create, deploy and trade their own blockchain tokens quickly and easily.

Lite Client

Although the DEX has been live on mainnet for around two weeks, the release of a new version of the lite client with a GUI means that it is now accessible to everyone.

The lite client currently offers a straightforward but familiar trading experience, which will be recognizable to anyone who has used regular crypto exchanges, with order books displayed for all trading pairs.

However, unlike traditional crypto exchanges and unlike earlier decentralized exchanges, users can trade any pair of tokens they want directly against each other, without the need for an intermediary currency.

Although all trades are settled on the blockchain for security, Waves DEX is designed to compete with and complement existing exchanges in terms of speed as well as security. New ‘Matcher’ technology means that orders are matched in real-time (typically within milliseconds), meaning that there is no need to wait for the next block to know whether a trade has been executed successfully.

Secure Trading with DEX and Gateways

With bitcoin drifting back toward its all-time high and interest in virtual currency growing — both as a store of value and as a means of speculation — traders have little alternative but to use currently centralized exchanges that have always proven a point of weakness in the bitcoin ecosystem.

Sasa Ivanov, CEO of Waves said:

“As we learned from the implosion of MtGox, and as numerous other exchanges have shown since, centralization always introduces a point of failure. The bitcoin world desperately needs decentralized exchanges, and we’re pleased that Waves can offer one of the first solutions that is fit for purpose — fast, secure and with a familiar user interface. The Waves community can trade bitcoin against Euros, against WAVES, and against any of the other tokens that have already been launched on the platform.”

Traders can deposit bitcoins through a secure bitcoin gateway, which holds the coins in multi-sig cold storage and automatically sends an equivalent number of Waves bitcoin tokens (WBTC) to the recipient’s account. Licensed and fully compliant gateways for fiat, starting with euros, are also available. Waves already has a thriving network of initiatives, including the Waves Community Token (WCT), the Miners’ Reward Token (MRT), Incent and Darcrus, with major crowdsales including MobileGo, EncryptoTel, and ZrCoin coming towards the end of April.