“Do we really need another exchange?” This is what you might have read already often once a new Exchange ICO has started. Well, the answer is, that we probably don't need the next rubbish one, but a GOOD decentralized Exchange would be definitely helpful. Having EtherDelta with all its security issues and the most terrible user experience one can ask for, it is refreshing to see a project like ALTCOIN.IO, who indeed seems to take this approach seriously – and that without going for a money grab to raise funds, not to mention any names “ED” via an ICO.

Altcoin.Io is driven by a team of seasoned vets: Traders with experience, skilled engineers, and well-known mentors from the entrepreneur scene. They aim high – and take their time to go live. We see this as a good thing in general: they don't have to satisfy the needs of ICO investors and can develop at their own pace – doing things the right way, without any rush. However, this is not to say that they are slow or lazy, you can observe constant progress if you are following them. The goal to build an exchange, featuring the power of the Atomic Swap technology is not easy to achieve. Isn't it crazy that the world of blockchain, the tech of decentralization, that is notorious for cutting out the middlemen, of which we have no really good decentralized exchange to trade on? (To be fair BarterDex, developed by the team of Komodo is working on a similar approach) Centralized Exchanges are like the wild west in Crypto – no regulations, nothing. They could basically do what they want with your coins. ALTOCOIN.IO takes some serious efforts to make that happen with their Atomic Swaps wallet.

What the heck is an Atomic Swap?

Right now if you want to exchange amount x of ETH to amount x of BTC you need an exchange, a middleman. You deposit your funds on the centralized exchange and offer your BTC for a certain price on the public market. If your order gets filled, you and the counterparty both pay a commission for having the trade executed successfully. The GitHub for the ETH<>BTC atomic swap is already online. With Atomic Swap you would be able to find that counterparty to trade right from your wallet, without a centralized exchange. Atomic Swaps are possible only if the cryptocurrency is on the lightning network.

But what is so bad about a centralized exchange? Well, the power is in the hands of the owner and his company stores all the data on their servers. In our case, the data is also your money in cryptocurrencies. Decentralized would mean the database of all funds and transactions is mirrored in real-time on computers all over the world, making it unfakeable, as all the copies must match to make a transaction final and complete. Centralized exchanges have a bad history in the world of crypto, Mt.Gox/Bitfinex, and all these nasty hacks where people lost loads of money, you name it. Many of these even have a pattern to them, of which it is very likely to be inside jobs by those you are trusting your cryptocurrencies to.

What's the good thing with Altcoin.Io?

Altcoin.Io has several advantages over traditional exchanges. You can abstract the biggest advantage from the last paragraph already. A decentralized exchange allows you to

…trade secure

You are in full control over your funds and not depending on the sheer mercy of the exchange you are using. You cannot lose your coins due to software errors or hacks as it is decentralized on the blockchain. There will be simply no hacks or server downtimes possible.

…trade anonymously

Decentralized services don't need any KYC or other data to be exposed and checked. There will be no verification process. We don't provide any tax advice, but we would be sincerely interested in how the new taxation rules for trades will be applied if they are executed on anonymous accounts on a decentralized exchange.

…experience a nice User Experience and Customer Support

The team behind altcoin.io surely researched the markets narrowly. They must have seen to what the average trader has to go through when trading cryptos and used that to their advantage. From the very beginning, their focus is on customer support and a clean UX for smooth trading experience. One of their declared goals is to offer superior customer support, that is often missing from others and they are focusing their efforts on this goal, so they don't fail at this point like most of the other exchanges.

What we think about Altcoin.Io

We think that Altcoin.Io might have a nice future ahead. Great to see an ambitious project starting over with no ICO, but still a great team that develops a neat piece of software to be run on the blockchain. We need a solid decentralized exchange, it is embarrassing for the crypto world that there is no stand out to be found as of yet. Decentralized exchanges will be the next step ahead and we think Altcoin.Io could become a major player in this field if they keep up with the way they are using to go right now. There are many DEX in the making, 0x has some nice approaches in the pipeline, too – tho it has always been that nerdy guy, that command-line Linux between shiny Macs and PCs. However DEX like EtherDelta, 0x, Kyber Network offer better security on one hand, but on the other, they store the private keys in ERC20 compliant smart contracts, based on off-chain order books. Whilst the Ethereum network and those smart contracts are a great thing, those DEX exchanges will be always limited in the number of tokens and are likely to experience performance issues. Altcoin.Io's approach goes another route that addresses these issues. All in all, we really like and see a bright future possible for them and hope you do too!

You can take a look at the preview of the Altcoin.Io exchange already.