The first zero-fee decentralized exchange with fiat on-ramp, Stellar X, launched this week on the Stellar blockchain. The project was made possible by Interstellar, the umbrella company for Chain and Lightyear. All Stellar’s new and existing users can now deposit major fiat currencies in exchange for major cryptocurrencies without transaction charges from a recognized bank account. This is huge for the developing world of crypto, which will fit well with the growing industry that boasts more Bitcoin platforms, software providers, and online casinos.
Completely Free
Decentralized transactions present a user-friendly experience, but users of Bitcoin, Ethereum, IDEX, EtherDelta, and so on, still pay for transaction fees in local and international exchanges. Stellar X is the only free trading platform in the market today. It will cost you nothing and the company will even refund all network costs to your account. More than that, you get personal control over your assets.
The mechanism behind StellarX is not dependent on money or capital to function, that’s why they can handle the zero-free project without going bankrupt. In fact, the company released a statement claiming “trades and orders are native to Stellar, not a layer that has to be superimposed via relayers and smart contracts. And Stellar’s consensus mechanism requires neither “work” nor “stake.”
Supports A Multitude Of Currencies
As long as the user has a U.S. bank account, he or she can deposit dollars directly via ACH bank transfer inside the app. But aside from dollars, Stellar X also show tokens for Euros, Philippine Peso, Nigerian Naira, Chinese Yuan, Hong Kong Dollar, and the British Pound. As for the cryptocurrencies, the major coins are already in place, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Transparent Market
StellarX, despite being free, can protect its users through transparency. They provide a completely fair marketplace for both traders and issuers. For traders, all tokens will behave in an expected manner. There are no smart contracts to unravel ownership, and the tokenization is handled at the protocol layer from simple templates. For issuers, one can see the list of customers together with their identities before they interact with the tokens.
With this protocol, information flows freely between holders and issuers. Users are allowed to impose Know Your Customer (KYC) policy before a person can trade their tokens, but holders can also handle human-readable information about what assets they own so they can make decisions for themselves.
Future Features
The revolutionary zero-free transaction feature of StellarX doesn’t stop there. Interstellar released a summary of product priorities over the next few months, following the launch. In no particular order, expect the following features on the site:
- A mobile site
- In-app deposit/withdrawal support for all tokens via SEP 0006
- Portfolio performance reporting & summaries
- Improved charting library
- Fungible path-payment support (i.e. allowing a sender to send token A and specify that the recipient receives it as token B)
- A market maker rewards program
- Multi-sig support
- SEP 0007 support for airdrops, etc.
- Non-XLM markets support
- Universal (optional) KYC via SEP 0009 & 0010
- Self-serve platform for issuers to submit more token detail
- Bitcoin.tax support for Stellar trades
