How we Match our Customers with Great Projects: Mike’s Monthly Message

As the CEO of one of the largest crypto-fiat exchanges in the world by trading volume, I get to see a lot of what’s happening in the cryptocurrency space – both good and bad. I continue to be impressed by the amount of innovation there is in crypto and it’s a privilege to be able to work alongside many of these projects, particularly those who share our vision for making financial services accessible for all.

As many of you will know, I’ve been interested in Bitcoin for many years. Being unable to buy Bitcoin was the catalyst that inspired me to found Quoine and subsequently Liquid. I realized the disruptive potential while my peers in banking were none the wiser.

I felt like an outsider. I could see this powerful new technology that threatened all of our livelihoods, yet everyone seemed to be ignoring the potential of distributed ledger technology. Banks can feel the pressure now, even if they don’t directly acknowledge it.

Building disruption

Rain or shine, bull market or bear market, there are talented teams working to create something unique that could truly change the way we live. As an exchange, we work with projects that we believe can enhance the Liquid ecosystem.

Conversely, we have also delisted a number of projects to maintain a certain standard, not afraid to admit that there are times when project teams fail to live up to expectations, despite a promising start.

We are always on the hunt for quality projects that we believe Liquid customers would be interested in. In that sense, I like to think of Liquid as a purveyor of innovation.

Unearthing innovation

There are a lot of cryptocurrencies out there – too many. There are certainly far more than we could ever list. Our job is to bring the ones that are of interest to you.

Every project that hosts an Initial Exchange Offering or is listed on our platform is subject to our thorough token review process. We verify that projects we work with have a solid mission and a drive to succeed.

Liquid is the preferred exchange choice for many project teams because we’re regulated, trustworthy, secure and flexible. These traits are becoming increasingly important in the crypto space today. New innovators are looking to legitimate players to support their journey – and I couldn’t be more proud to support them.

I acknowledge that we may not currently list all of your favorite tokens on Liquid, but we do hear and see your comments, questions and requests, particularly those asking when we will list more of the big cap cryptocurrencies you can see in the Coinmarketcap top 100. While we could simply list every major altcoin for trading, we take into consideration a number of factors, including what kind of activity we might see on any listing.

Listing a popular token that can be found on many top exchanges would not always guarantee volume, and so we must factor in costs and resources involved. For that reason, we strive to find new and exciting projects and bring them to Liquid customers first.

What’s coming to Liquid?

That’s not to say, however, that we won’t list more of the larger, more established coins. We recognise that Liquid users want choice - and this means being able to trade some of the most well known coins. As a large exchange, everything is a game of priorities. We are working to on-board a number of the well-known cryptocurrencies alongside the newer ones. Coins like IOTA, ADA and KMD are in the works, for example.

Let’s not forget, also, that we were among the first exchanges to provide a platform for projects like TPAY, RFOX, ZEBI, LND, GET and many more.

But it’s the forthcoming projects that I’m most excited about. These projects are raising the bar in their respective fields.

Hedera Hashgraph is a new type of distributed ledger technology that is challenging blockchain. It’s fast, secure, stable and compliant. Liquid is going to be one of the first exchanges to list Hbar, Hedera’s token.

nahmii is a scalability solution that is essential for mainstream adoption. Neither Bitcoin nor Ethereum can handle more than 15 transactions per second, making them unsuitable for most commercial applications. nahmii moves the majority of transactions off-chain, away from the slower base layer. The main blockchain is still used to secure the protocol. Nahmii is Ethereum based but will be ported to Bitcoin using RSK in early-2020. The nahmii IEO is coming to Liquid soon.

Anchor is a new type of stablecoin. Most stablecoins are pegged to one asset, be it a fiat currency, precious metal or anything else, but this makes them susceptible to market movements or inflationary value of the asset they are pegged to. Anchor is different as it’s pegged to the sustainable and predictable growth trend of the global economy. Anchor is already live for trading on Liquid.

Clear Markets is a leading developer of global electronic marketplaces and trading technologies. Most recently, Clear Markets announced a move into the cryptocurrency space with the Clarity token (CLRX). Clarity forms part of an innovative system developed by Clear Markets to manage the risk of cryptocurrency derivatives. Clear Markets is a proven leader with trading technology and is part-owned by both SBI Holdings, Inc. and the Nikkei group's QUICK Corp, two leading companies in Japan's financial information and technology sector. The Clear Markets IEO is now live on Liquid.

Finally, we were the first to offer a public sale of the innovative and highly sought after Gram token. The token sale was a great success. Telegram will soon launch the Telegram Open Network, which will be a massively scalable decentralized network with a vast amount of services that will leverage the success and active user base of Telegram. Expect to see Gram listed on Liquid in the near future.

I want Liquid to support the growing crypto ecosystem and to facilitate the discovery of new projects so we can thrive together.

Thanks to all of you that have read my update this month. This is a topic I haven’t talked about before, but it’s an important part of building a healthy exchange ecosystem. We’re still on track.