The blockchain industry has grown immensely these past few years and exploded in 2017, possibly signaling the start of a revolutionary adoption of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain by the public.

The rise of cryptocurrencies this year is also partly due to the inevitability of major changes and innovations in the financial industry as a result of the blockchain, which is basically a digital distributed ledger.

What was once dismissed is now worth over $200 billion (and growing)–the current cap of the cryptocurrency market where tokens are available instantly via public exchanges like Coinbase or Poloniex, all of which have millions of traders using the platforms every single day.

The online aspect of financial instruments, however, is not something revolutionary. The forex industry, for example, rose in popularity even faster than cryptocurrencies with brokers available virtually everywhere today.

One thing has to be said–although the online trading industry is booming, there is always room for disruption. As digital assets become more and more popular, banishing middlemen is one of the first things that should be achieved.

Introducing Spectre

Removing the need for intermediaries is exactly what Spectre is looking to accomplish.

Spectre, an acronym for the Speculative Tokenized Trading Exchange, is the world’s first brokerless trading platform with a completely decentralized liquidity pool.

Spectre’s solution to the online trading platform industry is a long-awaited one.

For starters, the multitude of negative complaints and shady events happening in online trading platforms raise eyebrows. It is common knowledge that online brokerages intentionally manipulate prices to ensure that the trader loses in the long run.

We still haven’t even talked about how brokerages scam users of their money by implementing nonsensical rules to prevent users from withdrawing their money; even if money is withdrawn, there is no guarantee that it’ll reach the user’s bank account. It is not out of place to say that online traders are looking for a fair and efficient alternative which makes the Spectre project a potential game changer.

Being a fully decentralized platform, Spectre removes the broker out of the picture entirely which gives users full control of their funds and decisions not only in the binary options industry but also in classic retail forex and equities trading. Spectre intends to reshape online trading by being fully transparent which eliminates the shady operations of online trading platforms previously.

Readers should note, however, that Spectre is not a cryptocurrency exchange. Instead, it allows traders to fund their accounts through cryptocurrency wallets to access traditional financial instruments such as forex, equities, and options via the Ethereum blockchain.

One of Spectre’s strong points is its star-studded team.

The project is headed by Karan Khemani, a serial entrepreneur with an impressive resume in finance with executive positions in places like J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs as well as a degree from LSE to boot.

Besides Khemani, the team makes it clear that it only employs experts in financial engineering as well as experienced developers and blockchain experts that add nothing but value to the platform.

So, what’s the buzz about the token sale?

Spectre will have two types of tokens on sale and in circulation, after the ICO is over, each trading separately on different exchanges as well as having different benefits to token holders.

One of the tokens pays out dividends and is known as the SPEC-D token. The dividends are calculated by the growth of the liquidity pool and buyback program which will be explained shortly.

The holders of the dividend-token obtain a 2% dividend stream paid at the end of every week as well as a special dividend that pays yearly.

The other utility token, named the SPEC-U token, does not pay dividends but is needed for additional benefits such as higher payouts, the ability to trade all assets and view trade indicators in the platform as well as access to the Spectre Financial Education Academy.

What’s the buy-back program all about?

The Spectre team will be using roughly 3% of fees generated to launch a token buy-back program as a signal of confidence in the project’s growth; the program will be used to buy-back SPEC-U tokens from exchanges in an ongoing basis.

While the buy-back program is not a revolutionary concept, it does present a benefit to token holders. By intentionally removing the excess supply of tokens in the market, this increases the value of the tokens as supply is now lower.

Any unsold tokens during the token sale will also be burned (removed from the total supply) which means investors receive a greater percentage share of tokens.

As the tokens are both ERC-20 compliant tokens, they can be stored on any Ethereum wallet that supports the protocol and traded on most cryptocurrency exchanges.

Unlike many of the ICOs out there, Spectre already has a working alpha program in place that runs extremely well.

To test it out, just head over to Spectre’s homepage and try the alpha version for yourself. The decentralized liquidity pool and tokenized balance sheets will be developed soon after the end of the token sale.

With all of these features, it is important to understand what Spectre really brings to the market; that traders no longer have to adhere to the shady laws of brokers and at the same time, expensive fees, dubious withdrawals, and manipulated prices are going to be a thing of the past–forever.

The Spectre token sale

The Pre-Sale has just finished and more than $6.5m was raised in just a few days.

Two types of tokens, a dividend-token and a utility-token will be available during the crowdsale.

For more information about the two tokens, click here to go to Spectre’s page on the differences between SPEC-D and SPEC-U.

Token name: SPEC-D and SPEC-U

Token base: Ethereum (ERC-20 compliant)

Token supply: 5,000,000 (minimum supply) – 240,000,000 (max supply)

Token sale duration: November 17th, 2017 – December 10th, 2017

Token sale target: $30,000,000 (hard cap)

Token exchange rate: 1 ETH = 2,000 SPEC-D or 2,000 SPEC-U

Spectre’s Website

Spectre’s whitepaper