Currensee Inc. (a catchy name combining the words currency + see = transparency and authenticity) comes out of long tested private beta into an open beta this week.
Retail Forex market is approaching its maturity in the developed countries and one of the courses it is taking is a gradual shift towards increased transparency. With retail brokers realizing that ECN and non-dealing execution (FXCM and MB Trading being the first to embrace this approach) is what the market requires, the traders themselves are now more than ever interested in more accurate and non-biased information than before. Fed up with yet another Forex forum and yet another Forex news portal where anyone can post anything and where the information is largely unverified, traders now require real-time data and real-time decision network, which can support their trading methods and strategies. This is where collaborative trading and networking come in.
We already have a collaborative Forex broker – the peculiar ThecollectiveFX, which claims to be non-profit and strives to achieve best spreads by offering large volume to Liquidity providers. We also have various trading rooms where novice traders are mentored by experts (more or less) to make the right investment decisions. But the new technology and the Web 2.0 wave also created a chance for something that is one step forward – collaborative social networking – and the Currensee guys were the first to tap into this market niche.
Currensee is the first and largest Forex social network. Tom Herod wrote about the importance of social networks on Forex Magnates back in May and Currensee has evolved significantly since.
Currensee.com is the difference between information and content:
Currensee now allows traders to share real-time trading information of actual trades, meaning that you can base your decisions on actual, authenticated data from real traders and what they are trading now. Being submerged in a real-information network allows you to make more accurate investment decisions because you are basing your decision on facts and not rumors. You see what others are doing, what strategies they are using, who has a similar trading style to yours, and you also see the only thing that really matters: who is winning and who is losing.
With industry’s average of 90% traders blowing up their accounts, Currensee also stands out: the community win percentage consistently stays above 50%, which is very impressive. In the Forex trading market, which by some is considered as another game of chance, this is not bad considering that pure chances are 50/50, right?
With large backing by VCs (completed another investment round just now), knowledgeable and experienced team, and a very ambitious development roadmap, Currensee is well positioned to keep leading the social networking arena in the near future. Fairly, the GUI could have been a bit more appealing and the interaction between traders still requires some tweaking, but the bottom line is achieved because at the end it’s a social business-decision network and not another photo-sharing, time-wasting, social network.
I also think that it might be interesting to see real-time decision making networks such as Currensee integrate with another transparent real-time results company like Tradency. This will allow traders to combine manualf trading and auto trading diversifying their portfolios and strategies. This might create the largest real time information and trading network on the web.