Cryptocurrency users will acknowledge that there has been a steady stream of new ERC20 tokens introduced during the past few months. It is very difficult for most of these tokens to get listed on big exchanges right now. That is not entirely surprising, as there is much more supply than demand. Thanks to innovative features such as Distrct0x and now The 0cean, things will slowly move in the right direction. It is good to see more developers focusing on this emerging market and embracing P2P trading solutions.
The 0cean is a new Liquidity Pool
Not too long ago, we touched upon the concept of the 0x protocol and how it could revolutionize the way people trade ERC20 tokens. Right now, most of those trades occur through centralized exchanges. This is no longer a viable solution. Exchanges either do not list the tokens people want or they cause so much manipulation, there is no point in getting them added in the first place. Additionally, the big exchanges take their due time to vet new tokens, which can take weeks or even months.
District0x aims to change all this with its 0x technology framework. Introducing peer-to-peer decentralized trading solutions for ERC20 tokens is an interesting idea worth exploring. It will certainly be appreciated by holders of the many tokens in existence. Centralized exchanges may not necessarily be a big fan of the concept, though, as it could impact their business model and revenue in the years to come. It appears other developers are already building new solutions on top of the 0x protocol.
One of those solutions is known as The 0cean. It is designed to become an 0x–based relayer as well as a liquidity pool for the trading of ERC20 tokens. It is an interesting concept, though the platform has not gone live just yet. According to a recent blog post, the platform will be going live a few weeks from now, although a specific launch date wasn’t provided. The goal is to start out slowly by providing a high-performance order book and an API for others to hook into.
More importantly, the fees maintained by The 0cean will be far more competitive compared to those offered by centralized exchanges. It is unclear how low those will be, but there should be a significant difference. In theory, this will allow all users to successfully create automated trading strategies. All of this will heavily depend on how much liquidity can be provided for these ERC20 token markets, though. There are other platforms such as EtherDelta to compete with in this regard.
Additionally, The 0cean’s team plans to add more advanced trading features in the future. Those will include a better trading dashboard for manual trading as well as tools to track markets. It is good to see increased competition in the world of cryptocurrency exchange solutions. After all, centralized exchanges are the go-to solution right now, even though they are not overly competitive, or reliable for that matter.
Owners of ERC20 tokens will be rather pleased with this development, as it may shake things up a bit in the exchange sector altogether. Decentralized solutions are in high demand right now, even though there are only a few options available. With the launch of The 0cean forthcoming in the near future, that situation may change in a positive manner. After all, centralized solutions are a bit of a mess right now. They soften struggle with scaling and providing interesting markets to users. Good things are coming to the ERC20 sector.
