With 2018 firmly behind us and the Early Access Waitlist for the Beta launch officially closed, you might be wondering what’s next. What’s in store for Digitex Futures this year and where will our roadmap for 2019 take us? Read on to find out more.

Quarter 1, 2019

This Friday, January 4, we’ll be announcing the top 10 winners of our Early Access contest. That’s right, 10 lucky traders will be finding out if they won a whopping 100,000 DGTX to play with on the Beta version of our commission-free futures exchange!

Then, on Monday, January 7, we’ll be letting the other 4,990 eager winners know if they made the cut for early access and 1,000 FREE DGTX. We will then start the process of onboarding them to the platform on January 15, once the top 10 winners have received their DGTX over a 10-day period.

We couldn’t be more excited to reveal the Beta version to our first 5,000–and show the community and industry at large what we’ve been working on over the last nine months.

Keep in mind that the Beta launch is only the very first version of the futures trading platform and, as such, doesn’t come with all the bells and whistles you’ll enjoy when we roll out to the general public. The Digitex Futures Beta version is still in test-mode.

The point behind this is to get the first 5,000 traders to really learn the system, to provide us with their valuable feedback, to uncover any bugs that may have escaped us, and to make sure that the exchange is water-tight and ready to be rolled out in quarter two.

We’ll be starting with just one market–Bitcoin against the US dollar and will be allowing traders to do exactly that–trade. Deposits and withdrawals will be disabled in the first version and we’ll be starting with 10x leverage.

Traders will notice that we will be rolling out upgrades and improvements to the exchange every six weeks (or every other two sprints). As we follow the Agile development process, at least three sprints will be needed during the Beta test to ensure that all issues and suggestions are taken care of and that we’re ready to go live!

We’ll also be launching the Digitex Treasury on March 1, Q1. This will be a 10-quarter-long ongoing project to finance the development and support of the futures exchange and allow us to achieve the goals laid out here in our roadmap. To find out more about the Digitex Treasury, check back here tomorrow, where we’ll be giving you all the details!

Finally, the Russian version of the Digitex website will soon be available, so we hope to make all information and Telegram support clearer to our users from this market.

Quarter 2, 2019

With Ethereum breaking back into its rightful position as the second most valuable cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, and Digitex Futures launching the first ever commission-free Beta version, you would think that quarter one couldn’t be improved on!

But, the team here at Digitex is expecting things to kick off in big style Q2 when we launch our fully functional custodial futures exchange to the general public.

In just a few short months, Digitex will be marking an industry first with its bold commission-free futures trading platform. The first public version of the Digitex Futures exchange will be custodial, which means we’ll hold on to your account balances. This is while we work closely with Matter Inc. Plasma developers to become an entirely non-custodial exchange.

All the while, the Digitex waitlist for the public version will continue to grow. Why? Because traders will be in with yet another chance of winning free DGTX upon launch–plus a ton of other prizes as well which we’ll be announcing soon. Watch this space!

We’ll have market makers working hard to ensure liquidity on both versions of the exchange. But with an anticipated over a million excited traders ready to flood the gates, the public version with deposit and withdrawal features plus 100x leverage and the ability to search trading history, it’s certain to be a raging hit!

Moreover, as soon as we’ve found our sea legs, we’ll be adding ETH and LTC markets to the exchange and other cryptocurrency futures markets as we see fit and demand grows.

Quarter 3, 2019 – A ‘Hyperbolic’ 3 Months

There will be literally no stopping Digitex Futures once we reach quarter three of 2019! We’ll be introducing our commission-free spot markets to onboard more traders and make Digitex available to all–even those who are hesitant to trade in futures markets.

They can enjoy the simplicity of the easy one-click trading ladder and buy and sell without having to give any percentage to the house.

We call this a ‘hyperbolic’ quarter because we believe that our high-demand, highly liquid spot and futures exchange with zero commission fees will be massive for the industry–and will change the way that cryptocurrencies are bought and sold for good.

We’re not only excited for Digitex Futures as an exchange or the value of DGTX increasing for our loyal community–we’re thinking way further outside the box here.

Because a simple-to-use commission-free exchange on futures and spot could be one of the major drivers in mass adoption of cryptocurrencies. And spot markets aren’t all we have in store for quarter three!

We will also be introducing multiple markets from the traditional futures space. These include gold, oil, stock indices, interest rate products, and more.

By doing this, we’ll open the exchange up to major new markets and shake up the incumbent exchanges that charge hefty fees and commissions. Digitex will be the only player in the space to offer such a revolutionary service.

Traders from traditional futures markets who see potential and interest in crypto can start out in markets they feel comfortable with. And crypto traders who have learned the fundamentals of futures trading can try their hand at traditional markets. It’s a win-win all around.

What Adding Traditional Futures Markets Means

Beyond the obvious rise in demand for DGTX once more and the uptick in price, the impact of adding traditional futures markets to our exchange could be truly explosive. After all, the futures industry is already a trillion-dollar one. Take a look at the numbers for a moment:

The Futures Industry Association (FIA) reported in 2017 that the total global futures volume reached a record high of 25.2 billion contracts with a shared estimated value of around $33.6 trillion. That’s a lot of money.

It’s not easy to get an accurate estimate of just how many retail futures traders there are that still use traditional brokers–or even how many retail traders there are.

However, back in 2015, Open Markets reported that there were some 16 million experienced active retail traders–and that just 3 percent of them were using futures trading platforms like CME.

But plenty has happened since then. With new asset classes like cryptocurrencies reaching the popular conscience and more and more trading platforms opening up thanks to the internet, mobile technology, and AI trading tools, the amount of retail traders has boomed with the majority declaring themselves as “self-directed.”

In fact, some 72 percent of millennials describe themselves as self-directed investors–which means they are happy to trade and invest on platforms without a broker. By 2020, these traders are expected to have an aggregated net worth of an eye-watering $24 trillion!

What do all these figures mean?

While gleaning exact numbers is hard, all figures point to the same sign–there’s a huge market of potential investors and traders out there just waiting for an easy-to-use platform that allows them to trade their favorite futures markets and gives them the confidence to crossover into new markets as well.

For further context, while futures trading failed to give crypto markets the institutional funds expected, CME reported a trading increase of 93 percent in the second quarter of 2018 after introducing Bitcoin futures. And CME charges hefty fees of $1.25 for individual members. Let’s not even start on brokers’ fees here.

Digitex is disruptive, lowering the barrier, and cutting out the middleman. We will play an active role in helping trillions of dollars of active futures contracts currently in paper format migrate to the blockchain.

We’ll unlock the wealth held in traditional markets and allow everyday people to trade and earn and manage their own fortunes.

And, at the end of quarter three, we’ll be launching a closed Beta version of the Digitex Futures non-custodial exchange. We’re sorry to say that this will not be open to US investors at the current time, but as with everything in crypto, this is subject to change.

Quarter 4, 2019

In the last quarter of 2019, our vision of Digitex Futures will be complete–a non-custodial commission-free exchange on futures and spot.

Traders can enjoy our fully functioning non-custodial exchange with features that are unheard of and untried or tested in this industry–or any other.

A trustless exchange fueled by plasma technology incorporated with Ethereum-approved developers, Matter Inc., and decentralized account balances that mean users will never again have to worry about their funds or trust the exchange they use.

We’ll provide a commission-free exchange that allows users to trade crypto futures as well as traditional futures markets with one click and zero fees. There will be spot trading for retail investors who want to trade without paying commission or using a custodial service. And an advanced, simple to use trading interface that allows them to realize real-time on-chain transactions with entirely decentralized account balances.

Towards the end of 2019, we’ll also be launching the mobile app version of the exchange just because we like to set the bar so high! The public exchange will then be made available in different languages for users in all our most popular markets, including Eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

The Digitex Futures Roadmap Takeaway

Let’s recap in case you didn’t take it all in! 2019 is going to be a stellar year for Digitex Futures, for cryptocurrencies, traders, investors, and mass adoption–not only the institutional traders from the likes of Nasdaq but the retail traders currently in traditional markets or futures.

We’ll be using cutting-edge technology to deliver the best, most varied, and robust exchange imaginable with zero commissions and decentralized account balances. We can only begin to guess at the impact this will have on the industry and the financial world at large.

If you want to join us, the good news is that we’ll be reopening our waitlist next week. Adam will also be releasing trading videos to show you how to use the platform and give you a sneak peek at how simple it is! Become a part of our revolutionary community that will help bring crypto to the masses, and let’s change the world together.

If you have questions about any of the elements of the Digitex Futures Roadmap, or any of our plans for the year ahead, Adam will be doing a LIVE AMA on Friday at 11 AM EST. Be sure to tune in and let us help you with your query.