Introducing the Interstellar v3.0 update codenamed Sirius. Yes, seriously.
Sirius is a star system and the brightest star in the Earth’s night sky with a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46.
On a more “Sirius” note, we at Fintech Ltd, believe that the Stellar Decentralized Exchange (SDEX) is too powerful a beast to be tamed. If everyone is busy building UI/UX tools for newbies, who will build tools for the pros and the wild ones?
Fintech Ltd is proud to announce the release of Interstellar v3.0, the most powerful and untamed SDEX frontend out there.
Although we launched Interstellar 2.0 (Proxima Centauri) just a few months ago, this new major update is so cool and important that we resisted the urge to tag it v2.5 (Tau Ceti) and decided to tag it Interstellar v3.0 (Sirius), because it’s our most brilliant release yet.
With the introduction of KYC, fiat anchors and our advanced SDEX frontend UI, we hope you’ll enjoy this new update.
Introducing Interstellar KYC
Here at Fintech Ltd, we believe a lot in the use cases of blockchain technology that go beyond cryptocurrencies, and one very important use case of blockchain technology is asset tokenization.
Whether we like it or not, one of the important requirements and white elephants in the room for most asset backed tokens (ABT) is regulation, and when you talk about regulation, you can’t leave out KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering).
According to the CEO of Fintech Ltd, Mr. Ernest Mbenkum:
When ABTs become ubiquitous and they will, we are going to have a very serious issue of KYC fatigue because users will be required to submit the same KYC info and documents across different companies, financial institutions, governments and jurisdictions.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could have a secure place to store all your KYC data and grant or revoke access to your KYC info for each ABT on a need to know basis and on demand?
That’s exactly what we did with Interstellar. An in-built KYC platform built with Stellar technology where you can securely store all of your KYC info and related documents.
Your KYC documents are encrypted locally on your device using your Stellar public key and can ONLY be accessed on your local devices via Interstellar using your Stellar private key.
Even though your KYC data is encrypted locally on your browser, we also store your encrypted data on our remote servers for backup. This is mainly for your convenience in case your device gets stolen, or you need to sync across multiple devices. Your encrypted data isn’t at risk on our servers because we do not know your private key(s).
The best part about our KYC implementation is that you get to pick and choose what you share with third parties like an à la carte menu. You will be able to see the specific data a third party is requesting from you, and only you have the power to share that specific info with the third party. If the third party only needs your email address and not your phone number, you will have the possibility to only share your email and exclude your phone number or other info.
KYC management is so important because we know it will be required in the most popular asset backed tokens category i.e. tokens tethered to fiat. Let’s call them fiat anchors for now.
Introducing Fiat Anchors
Crypto to crypto trading is cool. But do you know what’s even cooler? Fiat to crypto, and we’ve made it super easy to do just that within the Interstellar app.
Historically, Interstellar was only focused on anchoring other cryptocurrencies. We successfully anchored BTC, ETH, LTC and even XRP. Our deposit/withdrawal experience has always been so cool because you could deposit and withdraw any of our anchored crypto-currencies without leaving the app or relying on third parties. Interstellar has helped thousands of users with their crypto to crypto transfers. Coincidentally, we received a 5-star review from one of our fans on Google Play just as we were writing this blog post. Screenshot below:
In April 2018 we successfully integrated our very first fiat anchor, the NGNT token from Cowrie, which is pegged 1–1 to the Nigerian Naira. It had the same seamless experience where users could trade Naira fiat to crypto instantly, without leaving the Interstellar app.
We are now super excited to announce the integration of four new fiat currencies with the Interstellar platform. The first three fiat currencies are USD, GBP and EUR, anchored by The White Company . The White Company offers a stable, transparent, and secure ecosystem for cryptocurrency asset management, payments and enables consumers and companies, alike, to harness the many benefits of digital currency without any of the risk, expense or market volatility.
You can now prepare your KYC info, deposit, withdraw and trade USD, GBP, and EUR without leaving the Interstellar app.
The following three tokens from White Standard are already integrated into Interstellar:
- WSD (pegged 1–1 to the USD),
- WSP (pegged 1–1 to the British Pound) and
- WSE (pegged 1–1 to the Euro).
The fourth fiat currency integration we are excited to announce is the XAF token, anchored by Fintech Ltd, which is pegged 1–1 to the Central African CFA Franc (XAF) which is the official currency of six independent states in Central Africa or CEMAC region. The Bank of Central African States (BEAC) manages and issues the currency. Members of the Central African currency union, known as the Economic and Monetary Union of Central Africa include Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon. CFA stands for “Communauté Financière d’Afrique,” which translates to the African Financial Community in English.
Selected users can now deposit and withdraw their XAF tokens using mobile money in Cameroon. More on this in a separate blog post.
We believe the introduction of fiat anchors will increase liquidity in the SDEX from institutional investors. These investors will want to trade their fiat for crypto, Stellar backed ICOs or maybe just plain FOREX. Whatever the case, our trading UI/UX had to be useful enough for these professional traders. We needed to step up our game.
Introducing The New Interstellar SDEX UI for the pros.
Before talking about the new features in our latest SDEX frontend, let’s get something out of the way quickly.
We’ve built an SDEX, not an XLMDEX
There’s a big difference between Stellar the blockchain technology, and Stellar Lumens (XLM) the cryptocurrency. If the SDEX was only meant to trade XLM, it would be called XLMDEX, not SDEX. Many of the changes we’ve implemented on our new SDEX frontend have been to emphasize that the SDEX can be used beyond XLM trading pairs.
Let’s start with our market overview feature. It is powerful. We show you all popular trading pairs in the past 24 hours, with 24hour volume and 24hr price change percentages. We didn’t want to dumb down concepts like base and counter currencies which we believe any entry level trader should know about. You will even see popular trading pairs like BTC/CNY, because we believe the SDEX is a crypto and asset backed token exchange, not just an XLM exchange.
We also included an intelligent coin search feature so you can now search for full coin names, or just the asset code name. You can even search all assets from any anchor (Try it. Search for apay).
To avoid constantly searching for the same pairs while trading, the new Interstellar market overview panel allows you to star/tag a trading pair for easier access next time.
Finally, we decided to add more advanced trading charts and features. We included EMA12 and EMA26 indicators on our candlesticks and we also added separate RSI and MACD charts for the more serious traders amongst us. Other charts are in the pipeline like Bollinger Bands.
According to the CTO of Fintech Ltd, Mr. Fritz Ekwoge,
The Interstellar 3.0 Sirius update is available right now on all modern browsers at https://interstellar.exchange. We will soon release this important update on all other major mobile and desktop platforms.
Expect more from us soon!
About FinTech Ltd
Founded in March 2017, FinTech Ltd is a Cameroon-based technology company that develops innovative Blockchain Applications for the global banking and financial services sector. With our extensive experience in cryptocurrency development and a highly experienced team of Blockchain Developers, we aim to deliver the best Blockchain solutions at affordable market rates. For more, visit www.fintech.cm.
