On June 2nd, Coinbase Support tweeted that the exchange was experiencing some intermittent downtime and was looking into the issue. Users reported that the exchange was down for about an hour, coming back up at 16.58 PDT. Could this lead to the rise of Decentralized Exchanges?
Coinbase users were enraged, especially seeing as it wasn’t the first time the exchange went down after a surge in BTC prices. Users took to expressing their anger through the replies on the tweet, while a Redditor called for a boycott and suggested moving to other platforms.
Coinbase has been a culprit of several downtimes, with the incidences surging thanks to COVID-19-related volatility. Just last month, the exchange crashed for the second time in a month, following bitcoin’s surge to the $10,000 mark.
Paving the Way For DECs
The dominance of Coinbase cannot be ignored. The exchange is the largest in the US and holds about 1 million BTC, making it one of the largest among global exchanges.
Even so, it seems that users may now move to other exchanges, and in particular, decentralized ones. Coinbase is a centralized exchange and operates under the regulatory oversight of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). While the monitoring is meant to protect the users’ privacy and the legitimacy of transactions, there are several exchanges with less oversight that could be better trading platforms.
Decentralized Exchanges That Could Replace Coinbase
Although Coinbase boasts of a massive user base, new exchanges are coming up each day which could be worthy contenders for the exchange’s alternatives. As the need for privacy in the crypto space increases, users are likely to look out for platforms that provide better security, reliability, and trustworthiness with less oversight.
IDEX is one such platform and boasts of being the only decentralized exchange for ERC-20 tokens. The exchange brings together the security of blockchain settlement and the speed of centralized exchanges to provide the ideal decentralized platform. IDEx supports over 400 crypto pairs and offers competitive fees, making it a market leader.
Celsius Network is another similar platform that provides weekly interest payments and low-interest loans. The exchange charges no origination fees, no withdrawal fees, no default fees, and no early termination fees.
Other decentralized exchanges on the horizon include Nexo, crypto.com, and Kyber Network.