What is a Centralized Cryptocurrency Exchange?
It is an online platform and most common way to trade cryptocurrencies. This includes buying/selling cryptocurrencies with fiat (fiat/crypto paring) as well as buying/selling cryptocurrencies with other cryptocurrencies (crypto/crypto pairing). They can be viewed as an online marketplace for the entire cryptocurrency network.2.
To be centralized means to trust somebody else to handle your money. In the past, the word “centralized” was a given for all institutions that managed finances.
To be centralized means that there is a trusted middleman to handle whatever asset may be in a trade. In a bank, for example, a customer gives their money over to the bank to hold for them. This one institution is now in complete control of the customer’s money.
In many cases, this is much safer than a person finding some way to manage themselves. Banks have many securities and a team to watch over their customers’ money. The bank can also offer a variety of services, such as loans, because the bank has a large amount of money and has created a trust relationship with the customer.Centralized cryptocurrency exchanges are no different. A user can store their money on the exchange. The currency is now in the hands of the exchange, but the trust of the middleman makes it easy for a customer to recover a lost password or 2FA because that customer has given the exchange full access to their account. This can also take the pressure off of the customer of being 100% in control of their money. There are many stories of investors losing hundreds of thousands of dollars because they lost the private keys to their hardware wallet. If their money were in a centralized exchange, they wouldn’t have to worry about that; recovering would be as easy as showing a passport or verifying identification.3.
Cryptocurrencies and blockchain are decentralized by nature, so this allows for the exchanges to also be decentralized. In simple terms, a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange (DEX) cuts out the middleman by creating a highly intelligent “trustless environment.” Deals are made through smart contracts and atomic swaps so that currency never passes through the hands of an escrow service - it’s just peer-to-peer. DEXs are still in infancy and not very popular just yet, but 2018 might see a lot of progress with decentralized exchanges.4.
No. All exchanges have crypto/crypto pairing (i.e., trading 1 BTC for 9 ETH), but not all have fiat/crypto pairings (i.e., trading $900 for 1 ETH). One of the most popular exchanges that provide fiat/crypto pairings are:
5.
The more volume there is on an exchange, the less volatility and market manipulation there will be. If Alice is trying to buy 1 BTC for the exchange’s current price of $10,000 and the volume on the site is extremely high, chances are she will buy the 1 BTC almost instantly. If the market price is $10,000 on a very low volume site, she may eat up all of the sell orders that are at $10,000 before she can buy her whole Bitcoin. Then Alice would need to buy the higher sell orders to satisfy her order, losing money and also making the price of Bitcoin go up on that exchange. 6.
No centralized exchange is immune to hacks. Many hacks have occurred throughout the course of cryptocurrency history, but in many cases, the exchange went out-of-pocket to pay customers back for the stolen money. DEXs are impossible to hack, but users are much more vulnerable to locking themselves out of their money. Popular centralized exchanges are safe in the way that banks are safe.7.
The regulations of each country are still fuzzy, but exchanges around the world require minimum verification to authenticate the account. Many exchanges allow users to open an account without an identity check, but those accounts will have extremely small withdrawal/deposit limits. Basic verification normally requires a picture of the user’s passport/ID, and 2 Factor Authentication enabled. 2FA is a secret password that regenerates every thirty seconds or so that is needed every time a user logs into their account. 2FA is normally kept on the user’s phone.8.
While exchanges are still new and growing more and more popular each day, there have been some over the past 2017 year that have stood out in volume and amount of coins to trade.
