The Future Success of Cryptocurrency Hinges on Embracing Decentralization

Future cryptocurrency trading platforms will look very different from what we are used to today. With atomic swaps and decentralized trading platforms becoming more commonplace, things will get pretty interesting in the future. Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb is convinced that a decentralized network is the key to success for all cryptocurrencies.

A New Era of Crypto Trading

Even though centralized trading platforms provide a high degree of convenience when it comes to buying, selling, and trading cryptocurrencies, they are also a weak link. With their infrastructure issues and status as custodians of customer funds, it’s evident things need to change soon. Unfortunately, finding proper alternatives can be hit-and-miss.

Luckily, we’ve seen some positive developments recently. Decentralized trading solutions are slowly gaining traction. The 0x protocol as well as barterDEX and other solutions are all becoming quite popular as of right now. There is still some concern over their liquidity, but it is evident there is a lot of room for improvement in this regard.

If Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb is to be believed, this shift to decentralized trading solutions is an absolute must. This does not just apply to trading, though, as he is confident in a decentralized network connecting the underlying cryptocurrency blockchains as well. As such, this new network should be capable of bringing some competition to Swift and PayPal, but without their centralized aspect.

Building out this infrastructure in which anyone can participate is not easy by any means. Running network nodes in a decentralized manner has proven to be quite challenging for most cryptocurrencies. Even in the Bitcoin world, there are a lot of centralized nodes, mainly because people host them on web servers controlled by the same companies. That’s not a positive development by any means, yet there isn’t much that can be done about it. Ripple has the same issues, although it is the team which is operating most nodes, rather than the community.

It is evident this situation will need to change pretty quickly. McCaleb now works for Stellar, a company looking to build an internet-level protocol, rather than just a new blockchain. Moreover, the company’s non-profit status will make it a lot more appealing moving forward.

The cryptocurrency sector has seemingly lost track of its decentralization aspect as of late. Restoring those norms and values will not be easy, but it is something which passionate community members can work on. A decentralized internet protocol-level cryptocurrency-oriented solution will certainly introduce a lot of changes, but it remains to be seen how feasible this concept really is in the long run.