On December 18, 2017, the name DEW appeared on the Nasdaq billboard in New York’s Times Square. It was the first public appearance of the new decentralized exchange. The display served as a rehearsal for its official launch, and it signaled the project’s global ambitions.
Times Square is one of the city’s best-known landmarks. For years, top brands have used it to show new ideas and products. Because it ranks among the most visited tourist sites on the planet, it is often called the Crossroads of the World. Of its thousands of screens, the Nasdaq billboard is the largest and most influential. That is why so many global companies advertise on it. By debuting there, DEW put its international strategy on display.
What DEW is
DEW is a decentralized exchange built on blockchain technology and owned by the DEW Foundation in Britain. It claims to be the first decentralized exchange in the world to offer futures trading in several asset classes. These include stocks, bulk commodities, foreign exchange and precious metals. That, in turn, is meant to push forward the digitization of assets.
Well-known bitcoin investor Xiaolai Li has called blockchain one of the greatest technical advances of the 21st century. In his view, it will change people’s lives just as the Internet did. It will also reshape many industries and make the world more transparent and fair.
Bitcoin, created in 2008, was the first practical use of blockchain. It now trades above $19,000 per coin. Its market value has climbed to $320 billion, which is more than that of Walmart or Bank of America. Blockchain has updated many industries, and a large number of cryptocurrencies have appeared. However, most current exchanges are centralized. As a result, they are exposed to weak points, hacking and unethical behavior. When that happens, investors can lose their assets with no way of tracing them.
To remove those hidden risks, DEW gathered talent from around the world and built a decentralized digital asset exchange. The team says it is fully transparent and open to testing.
Room to grow
Recent data put average daily bitcoin trading at close to $5 billion. That is 77.5 times less than the $387.5 billion traded daily in global stocks in 2016. It is also 1,020 times less than the $5,100 billion traded daily in foreign exchange that year. So crypto still has a lot of room to grow. Meanwhile, stocks, currencies and derivatives keep drawing heavy demand.
Investing in currencies, stocks, bulk commodities and precious metals usually means meeting many standards and passing strict checks. Then, when investors convert those holdings into legal tender, they lose time. They also risk exchange rate losses and other setbacks.
DEW says it is the first to combine traditional financial products with cryptocurrencies. The idea is that investors can use digital assets to trade stocks, currencies and other futures. That should be easier and cheaper. The company believes this will speed up asset digitization and move asset trading into a 2.0 era.
The DEW app launched in beta on November 1, 2017. The official release is set for December 20, 2017.