What Can I do on the Amplify Brokerage Platform?
Did you know you will be able to use Amplify as early as Q2 2019? That’s the expected launch timeline for the Amplify Brokerage–the first phase of the Amplify Exchange.
The Amplify Hybrid Exchange is an ambitious and groundbreaking project that we’re rolling out in several stages; in this post, we’ll be taking a closer look at Phase One: The Amplify Brokerage.
A brokerage vs. an exchange
Crypto traders use exchanges and brokerages to turn one asset into another–very similar to someone in the traditional equities markets trading cash for shares of stock, or even a tourist visiting another country and turning their native currency into the foreign countries fiat.
So what’s the difference between the Amplify Brokerage and the eventual Amplify Exchange? The answer has a lot to do with how each venue matches individuals interested in buying assets with individuals selling their assets.
When you’re selling a token on an exchange, you can list it for any price you want–but you’ll only complete that sale if you find a buyer willing to pay your specified price. And since this is the case, you may have to compromise, adjusting your price downwards to find a willing buyer.
If you’re using an exchange, your possible matches are limited to other buyers and sellers on that exchange–although a better match might be available on a different exchange, you won’t find that match unless you take the time to shop around.
On the other hand, when you take the desired trade to a brokerage, you’re not committing to executing your trade on any particular exchange. Instead, the broker compares different trade options across several different exchanges to find the one that best meets your needs. When you use the Amplify Brokerage, none of the trade matchmakings will happen internally; instead, The Amplify Brokerage will search for optimal trades–meaning the best bid and ask prices available–under an umbrella of up to eight exchanges.
What can I do as a trader on the Amplify Brokerage?
The brokerage is only the first phase of Amplify; our final phase, the Amplify Hybrid Exchange, won’t just connect you to other exchange services, it will also host its own trades–meaning matchmaking will happen internally. On the Hybrid Exchange, trades will take place on Amplify’s highly secure network of node operators, which offers security and decentralization, as well as provides speed and accessibility that is unrivaled by other exchanges on the market.
The Amplify Brokerage doesn’t offer this unique hybrid structure (yet), however, slowly but surely, the final phase of the Amplify Exchange will come to fruition.
In the meantime, traders will still find they have plenty of features available to them on the Amplify Brokerage. We took a cue from the world of traditional finance, where the SEC protects consumers by requiring brokers to trade at the best available ask and bid prices on the market (the NBBO), and that is why the Amplify Brokerage will offer traders the best possible matches available across a multitude of the crypto world’s top exchanges.
Amplify’s access to these exchanges allows our brokerage to offer a plethora of fiat-to-altcoin trading pairs, which typically take several steps–and plenty of time and exchange fees–on most cryptocurrency exchanges that are currently on the market. In addition, the Amplify Brokerage will settle trades at the speed of a distributed (centralized) exchange while charging below-average fees.
The brokerage will also help traders make informed decisions through the tracking tools and project details integrated directly into our user interface. Whether you’re considering a potential token purchase, monitoring your portfolio’s performance, or researching different trading strategies, the Amplify Brokerage puts the information you need at your fingertips. Not to mention, all of these benefits will be available to a significant portion of the globe, because we plan on offering the Amplify Brokerage in several languages and countries.
Why start with the brokerage, why not the full exchange?
So you might be wondering, why is Amplify starting with a brokerage instead of the full-on Hybrid Exchange? Well, that’s because the Amplify Brokerage will provide much of the vital architecture that will act as the skeleton for the full version of the Amplify Exchange.
Comprehensive and intuitive user interfaces; access to liquidity, favorable prices, a wide range of trading pairs, and trade matching software are all vital elements of the exchange that we’re deploying in the phase-one brokerage launch.
As the Amplify project progresses, we’ll be adding more features to the structural skeleton laid down by the brokerage, first, transforming it from a brokerage to a distributed exchange, and then, from a distributed exchange to the full hybrid (distributed and decentralized) exchange. During each transformation, we’ll be building on top of–not scrapping–the progress we made in the previous phase.
Plenty of newer crypto traders have never tried a brokerage before, that’s because few offer user-friendly interfaces, competitive rates, a reasonable number of trading pairs, and perhaps most importantly, the foundation for what a truly competitive and decentralized crypto trading platform should look like.
That is why at Amplify, we are offering all three. The phase one brokerage lets us set out to effectively achieving this goal by giving us the ability to provide unparalleled trading utility while laying the vital groundwork for our uniquely decentralized, cost-effective, and user-friendly Hybrid Amplify Exchange that is under development.
Are you interested in learning more about the Amplify Exchange and all of its offerings? Check out our previous blog posts, and don’t forget to check us out on social media!
