Yesterday, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced the release of a demo version of the Binance DEX (decentralized Exchange ) over Twitter.
Zhao did not say when the new DEX would be officially launched. However, in a six-minute video attached to the Tweet, he and Binance’s development team showed how tokens can be issued, listed, and exchanged on the new platform.
A first (rough, pre-alpha) demo of the Binance Decentralized Exchange (DEX), showing issuing, listing and trading of tokens. All cli based, no GUI yet. A small step for #BinanceChain, a big step for #binance. https://t.co/2aXkR0gclP
— CZ (not giving crypto away) (@cz_binance) August 9, 2018
A Very “Casual” Demo
“That is a very casual, early demo for the Binance Chain,” he said. At the moment, the demo version of the exchange is very primitive. It doesn’t have a graphic user interface at the moment, and can only be accessed by command line. It’s also unclear when the exchange will be marketed and what kind of volume it will be capable of handling.
However, Zhao added that the development team was one or two months ahead of schedule in the project’s development.
Binance also recently acquired mobile cryptocurrency wallet platform Trust Wallet, which the exchange said is slated to improve the architecture of its centralized exchange.
Are Decentralized Exchanges on the Rise?
Decentralized exchanges are believed to be much more secure than centralized exchanges. While centralized exchanges are vulnerable to hacks and physical damage to servers, decentralized exchanges are virtually unhackable. They are upheld by networks of nodes (computers).
Binance’s DEX will allow its users to keep total control over their coins by granting them access to their private keys.
Binance isn’t the only exchange with plans to build a DEX. Huobi announced in June that it would be investing $100 million into the development of its own decentralized network.
Centralized exchanges have been the target of much regulatory scrutiny and public frustration as the result of a number of multi-million dollar hacks that have taken place over the course of the last year and a half. “I definitely hope centralized exchanges go burn in hell as much as possible,” Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin said in an interview with TechCrunch earlier this year.
