The Ultimate Guide of DEX Trading

Published in

DINNGO

4 min readOct 14, 2019

In the cryptosphere, there are two broad categories of exchanges for you to trade coins and tokens. They are centralized exchanges (i.e. CEX, such as Binance, Poloniex, and Bittrex) and decentralized exchanges (i.e. DEX, such as DINNGO, IDEX and Switcheo). Most people first started crypto trading on CEX for its simple and fast experience until they realize the compromise of giving their private keys to CEXs for the convenience. As the saying goes, Not your keys — not your Bitcoin. From there, we see more and more people started trading on DEXs to join the ship of ending third party control of your funds. However, trading on DEXs can sometimes be confusing to people who are used to trade on CEXs. That is why for this article, we provide you an ultimate guide of how to navigate on a DEX easily and efficiently.

1. Register an account

In most DEXs, no account sign up would be required. Users can start trading as soon as they connect their wallets to the exchange. But on DINNGO, you will need to sign up for an account. Here’s why. On average, users don’t have just one wallet. Some in cold wallet, some in hot wallet. It can be problematic to manage all different types of wallets. With the account system, we are able to provide advanced features and services to users, this includes

Wallets management. Where you can view your portfolio and performance of multiple wallets easily under your account.
Higher security. We monitor our trading activities closely. If there is any abnormal actions, we notify you immediately.
Instant customer support. Contacting us through your registered email can help us provide immediate support to without having to ask you to verify yourself as wallet owner, or provide loads of technical information.
First hand updates. Latest promotion, system maintenance, new features, etc, you won’t miss any of that.

2. Trading directly from your wallet

Unlike CEXs where users send their tokens to the exchange, DEXs let users to make trades directly from their wallets. To start with using a DEX, you need a wallet that can interact with the blockchain that is built on. For DINNGO, it is built on the Ethereum, so you will need an Ethereum wallet such as MetaMask. This wallet can be thought of as a place to store your tokens and you can trade your tokens on the DEX through your wallet.

3. Deposit your funds on the blockchain

Before you place the order to trade, you need to send the tokens that you want to trade to the DEX’s smart contract. We call this process “Deposit”, but instead of keeping tokens with a centralized ledger like most CEXs, your tokens are deposited on the blockchain and you are still the only person that has access to them. This is why, even after you deposit your tokens, you still need to sign each transaction. What does sign each transaction mean?

4. Signing transactions

The most different experience of trading on DEX is that you are the boss, which means, every transaction can not be processed without your approval. Be ready to see pop-up windows or alerts that ask you to “Sign”. For example, when you first connect your wallet to a DEX, your wallet would ask you to give the DEX permission to interact with your wallet. After which, every interaction with the exchange, such as authorizing a deposit, placing an order or canceling one, will also require a transaction with the blockchain hence you need to sign.

5. Mining time

Unlike CEXs, where transactions are written onto a centralized ledger, DEXs process all transactions onto the blockchain. We call this process “mining”, which means exactly “processing”. It just sounds more professional and cool to say “mining”. And this is why when you sign a transaction, it doesn’t just go through and complete instantly. It has to be “mined” into the blockchain. On Ethereum, and when the network is not congested, this should only take 15–30 seconds.

6. Gas

On CEXs, transactions are written into a private ledger and handled by a centralized engine, which is not on the blockchain. But on DEXs, all transactions on the Ethereum network cost gas, which is the currency paid to miners for performing blockchain operations. To trade on a DEX, users are usually responsible for covering all gas fees required to use the exchange. On DINNGO, deposit gas fees are paid directly by the user and all other transactions and withdrawals, DINNGO pays the gas fee to the network and deducts this fee from the user’s transaction.

In general, the biggest difference between CEX and DEX is that you hold 100% control of your assets. Any changes of your assets must be approved by you and we believe this is the only way to be your own boss, to fully manage your assets in your hand. With that being said, DEX is the place to provide you better and safer crypto trading experience.

We hope this guide is helpful for you to better navigate on a DEX. Visit dinngo.co to start trading today and earn $5 worth of USDT by simply complete one trade.