When investing in crypto, sometimes it’s best to take a step back and look at the industry as a whole. Instead of delving into the specifics of various cryptocurrencies that appear to have promising technologies and claim to solve all of blockchain’s issues, it’s best to first identify the big picture and see what’s trending.

You must try and see where the industry is heading and what types of cryptocurrencies are trending. Only then can you start to delve into the technology, tokenomics, and other specifics of certain coins.

To provide an example, it’s clear to me that decentralized finance (DeFi) is trending right now. According to the crypto data analytics firm, Defipulse, the total value in USD locked in DeFi products reached a high of $665 million recently on November 6.

If you look at the growth of DeFi, it has been in a bull market since the end of 2017 and continues to surge upwards:

So, DeFi is obviously one of the leading trends in crypto but I’ve also identified a second one, cryptocurrency exchange tokens. Some of the best performing cryptos over the past year or so are exchange tokens.

For instance, this year Kukoin’s token (KCS) went up 240%, OKEx’s token (OKB) went up 150%, Huobi’s token (HT) went up 380%, and the biggest gainer, Binance Coin (BNB) went up 534%.

Therefore, both DeFi and exchange tokens are clearly trending in crypto. And I know of one promising project that combines both of these trends, the Nash Exchange (NEX) cryptocurrency token.

Nash Exchange (NEX), is an exchange token based on the NEO blockchain and is utilized by Nash, a fintech company using blockchain infrastructure for the digital finance space.

In the following article, I provide a comprehensive and subjective look at Nash Exchange (NEX) so that you can fundamentally understand what Nash is and see the value proposition of NEX. I delve into its unique characteristics, its history, purpose, partnerships, as well as its issues and controversies surrounding it.

So buckle up and enjoy this comprehensive guide to understanding this promising exchange token/DeFi cryptocurrency – Nash Exchange (NEX).

History of Nash Exchange (NEX)

Originally known as Neon Exchange (NEX), Nash Exchange, which is also known as Nash, was founded in 2017 by 5 blockchain developers; Fabio Canesin, Fabian Wahle, Ethan Fast, Thomas Saunders, and Luciano Engel.

All 5 of Nash’s founders are also behind the open-source NEO developer community City of Zion and continue to develop key infrastructure for the NEO blockchain.

The founders created Nash with a mission of “bringing distributed finance to everyone,” and now offer users a decentralized and non-custodial financial services platform where users can invest, trade, and make payments with digital assets.

One of the more unique aspects of NEX is that it was launched and issued as the first digital token fully registered as a European security. Therefore, NEX represents the world’s first compliant public offering of a digital security where they raised $25 million from the public. Additionally, Nash also raised $12.25 million from traditional venture capitalists (VCs).

During Nash’s compliant public offering, NEX tokens were sold at a price of 1 NEX = 1.00 USD. 25,000,000 NEX (50 percent of the total token supply of 50,000,000 NEX) were sold during the sale.

Currently, Nash has a total supply of 56,296,100 NEX and a circulating supply of 36,196,678 NEX. The peak price of NEX was $3.27 on August 5, 2019.

Purpose of Nash Exchange (NEX)

Nash aims to bring distributed finance to everyone by providing fast, simple, and safe financial products that enable users across the globe to invest, trade, and make payments with digital assets.

They offer a range of financial products that combines the security benefits of blockchain technology with the speed and functionality of traditional financial services. They also focus on compliance to make finance transparent through decentralization.

As stated on the Nash website:

“Capital freedom generates prosperity. Distributed ledger technology can help expand that freedom. We believe in making this technology available to as many people as possible, ushering in a future of genuinely borderless finance and secure self-custody.” – Nash

Nash describes itself as a ‘distributed finance platform’ and provides its users with 5 different distributed finance products: Nash Exchange, Funds Management, Nash Extension, as well as Nash Mobile and Nash Pay which will be launching soon.

I’ll delve into each of these products, but for now, I'll go over the Nash Exchange as this is the primary product and purpose for the Nash Exchange (NEX) token.

Nash Exchange - A Powerful Decentralized Exchange (DEX)

The Nash Exchange is an innovative new DEX that enables the fast and user-friendly non-custodial exchange of digital assets.

Most blockchain-based DEX’s are more secure than traditional services but are usually slow and difficult to use. The Nash Exchange overcomes these problems by using an off-chain matching engine built on top of the NEO blockchain and features a user-friendly and intuitive interface.

As well, like other DEX’s, Nash Exchange is non-custodial, meaning users maintain control of their funds at all times. A user’s private keys are encrypted on their computer and are never stored on Nash’s servers.

Moreover, Nash Exchange enables crypto-to-crypto trading as well as fiat-to-crypto and vice versa due to Nash’s global network of currency partners that offer fiat on- and off-ramps. Additionally, the exchange features cross-chain trading so that users are not limited to just one blockchain. Nash aims to support all the major digital assets.

Nash Exchange Security Token (NEX)

As for Nash’s NEX security token, holders of the token can stake their tokens by locking them into a smart contract to receive dividend payouts that come from trading fees on the exchange. NEX can be locked up anywhere from 1 month up to 2 years and the longer you stake the more you receive.

For instance, staking for 1 month pays out 25% of the fees and increases gradually to 75% for the full 2-year stake. A staker can collect their dividends monthly by making a claim on the smart contract.

To provide an example:

Let’s say you have 1000 NEX and stake those tokens for 2 years, thus receiving the two-year staking rate of 75%. Now, if Nash generates $100 million in trading fees since the stake was made, the stake would be eligible for a claim worth:

$100,000,000 ∗ 1,000 / 50,000,000 ∗ 0.75 = $1,500.

Therefore, NEX tokens primarily derive their value from the success of the exchange. If the exchange has high trading volume and generates lots of fees, NEX users will be incentivized to buy more NEX and stake their tokens without selling, rinse and repeat.

Nash Exchange (NEX) Issues and Controversies

While Nash Exchange (NEX) is an innovative cryptocurrency token with Nash having multiple viable products, the project still suffers from issues and controversies.

For instance, before the project launched it was extremely hyped up by the NEO community. Everyone proclaimed that Nash was going to be absolutely huge. It was forecasted to have trading volume on-par with traditional centralized exchanges and that it would become the go-to DEX for crypto trading.

However, since Nash Exchange launched, it has failed to attract many traders and the volume is extremely low. As of November 7, 2019, the 24 hr trade volume was barely over $3000 and more often than not it doesn’t even get over $1000 in a day.

As seen from the chart above, Nash Exchange reached a 24 hr high of $34,000 in trading volume when it first launched on September 27, 2019. Since then, it has struggled to maintain steady volume and is far from beating most centralized exchanges, let alone other DEX’s.

Although, it’s important to note that the newly launched and rebranded Nash Exchange is only a few months old. Therefore, it’s too early to judge Nash just yet. It may very well explode in adoption as DEX’s become more popular and when the crypto bull market is in full swing.

Moreover, one other issue plaguing Nash Exchange is its lack of trading pairs. Currently, Nash only 6 trading pairs and 5 different cryptocurrencies including Neo (NEO), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Traval.com (AVA), Ethereum (ETH), and 0x (ZRX).

All in all, Nash must increase liquidity and add more coins and trading pairs if it ever hopes to make it in the competitive landscape of crypto exchanges.

Nash Exchange (NEX) Products, Partnerships, and Adoption

Adoption

As previously mentioned, Nash has not experienced a great level of adoption just yet. However, it is still early on for the newly launched DEX and we can expect to see adoption increase in the coming months and years.

Partnerships

As for Nash partnerships, the company is backed by market-leading investment firms including:

FlyBridge Capital Investors

NEO Global Capital (NGC)

Connect Capital

Aria256

BadWater Capital

KR1

Fathom Labs

Maven 11 Capital

Products

This is where Nash really shines as the company has 5 different distributed finance products: Nash Exchange, Funds Management, Nash Extension, Nash Mobile, and Nash Pay. We’ve already discussed Nash Exchange – the flagship decentralized exchange (DEX). Now let’s delve into Nash’s other products:

Funds Management

Nash features a non-custodial platform interface for managing your digital assets while preserving their security properties with the use of a zero-knowledge key manager. The Nash Funds Management interface is extremely well designed with a simple yet detailed portfolio tracking interface. Users can also seamlessly move their funds to and from the exchange or their own personal wallet.

Nash Extension

The Nash Extension is a browser-based wallet that connects your account to dapps and websites that use Nash services. It’s said to be the first cross-chain browser extension that enables users to store their assets, make fast payments, log in to services and sign smart contracts.

Nash Mobile

The Nash Mobile product has yet to officially launch but will be coming soon. When launched, it will essentially be a mobile wallet and mobile trading application with many of the same features as the Nash Exchange.

Nash Pay

Nash Pay will also be launching soon. The product will supposedly enable merchants to accept payments of digital assets instantly and securely. It’s poised to have seamless integration, easy and fast currency conversion, simple to manage, fiat payments, and zero fees.

Conclusion

Nash features an array of promising distributed financial products that have the potential to onboard new users and bring newfound volume to their DEX trading platform – Nash Exchange. However, some of these products have yet to even launch and trading volume on Nash is still very low.

Therefore, it is still very early for Nash, which is why its native cryptocurrency token, Nash Exchange (NEX), might be a lucrative investment right now. If Nash can improve upon its DEX by adding more trading pairs and bring in liquidity, NEX is in a very good place to perform well.

What do you think about Nash Exchange (NEX)? Do you think it’s DEX will see growth in adoption? What’s it going to take for people to migrate to Nash Exchange? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.