Bidesk: The Newest Crypto Exchange to Keep Your Eye On

There’s been a new exchange that’s making rounds in the Cryptosphere — Bidesk Exchange. When I first heard of it, I didn’t think much about it since there’s already tons of exchanges out there. But when I saw a couple of high profile crypto personalities not only shill it, but run contests and put their names on the line about it, I got curious. Bidesk has done a couple of AMAs introducing their exchange to bigger and bigger crypto communities.

I decided to do give it a try. The onboarding process went so seemlessly that I quickly saw the potential in it. It had good liquidity and good coins to choose from (some of the smaller altcoins here not on bigger exchange but have a good following). I decided to run a deeper research into this new Crypto Exchange.

What is Bidesk?

As described on their website:

“Bidesk Exchange is a digital asset trading platform that has been built to provide a secure and safe environment for trading high quality tokens and coins whilst providing the best user experience to its users. With the advanced matching engine, all types of users; from beginners who’re buying their first cryptocurrency, to the professional traders and hedge funds, are ensured of having the best trading experience. Bidesk also provide 24/7 customer support service which is always on hand to help, users are made certain of prompt response for any issue.”

Bidesk has always been humble about its origin stating that their main thesis has been learning from other exchange: both successes and mistakes. They are also very community focused not just for the sake of engagement but also for getting the community involved in decision processes such as features voting. I think those 2 are the most important aspects we can ask for from an exchange especially with all the problems we’ve seen from previous exchanges.

Currently, Bidesk already offers Spot Trading. Throughout the year more tools and services will be made available such as OTC Trading, Margin Trading, and Lending options.

Tokens

The exchange has already added the most popular trading cryptocurrencies such as BTC, ETH, XRP, EOS. Aside from this, they have also listed high potential altcoins such as LIT, UBT, GRIN, MBN and MATIC.

We can expect more altcoins that cannot be seen in major exchanges. The team has always been nimble and quick to spot, coordinate, and list prominent projects.

Liquidity

As for any exchange, liquidity is the blood and lifesource of an exchange. Without this blood, an exchange is said to be dead. This is the reason why most people still trade on centralized exchanges as compared to decentralized ones. And as expected, this was a question that has always popped up during AMA sessions. Here’s what the team has to say about it.

Many exchanges have suffered low liquidity which makes users find it hard to trade. We have developed a good mm (market maker) bot for liquidity [so] anyone can easily sell/buy. You can check our orderbook, we always have high liquidity, low spread to serve customers.

Trading fee

This is one of the things that can really vary between exchanges. It’s like going to banks and comparing not just the best rate but also seeing and knowing all of the hidden fees. In the long run, these fees add up. A good resource to look at is this twitter thread from @CosmonautC.

This is especially important for high volume traders and scalpers. And here’s how the Bidesk’s stand regarding it:

Many exchanges have high trading fees and we have made our own trading fee very low, and sometimes it’s zero fee and we’re not a money grab. This helps to encourage people to make use of our exchange because they can easily take advantage of trading on our exchange at a very low fee than other exchanges.

Bidesk has low trading fees:

▪️0.05% for the taker and 0.05% for the large market cap coins;

▪️0.1% for the taker and 0.1% for the maker at other altcoins.

24/7 Customer Service

Bidesk has round the clock customer service representatives which are always available to give prompt response to our customers. This feature is especially useful for newbie traders who are new to the trading game.

Pipeline

Despite being just 2 years old, Bidesk has been steadily catching up with other exchanges in terms of their features and products. We an expect the team to release the following products:

Binance Chain integration — Q1 2020
Future trading — Q2 2020
Margin trading — Q2 2020
Staking — Q2 2020
Lending — Q2 2020

TEAM

The founding members of Bidesk comprise of Techno Business Executives, IT Architects, blockchain developers, investors with profound knowledge of regulations, and current crypto markets and its operating ambience, order matching processes and trade algorithms. With an average of more than 15-years of professional experience, the team has significant exposure to trading, business development, planning, finance, database dev ops, quant-trading and business management. Currently they have around 20 team members all around the world.

Sunil Robert — CEO, SAP consultant and Technical Lead for over 15+ Years. https://au.linkedin.com/in/arun-sunil-robert-lobo-2904a04,

Sam Choi — CSO, Sales Operations Manager at Thomsons and Qubit https://www.linkedin.com/in/schoimkt/.

BIDESK TOKEN (BDK)

Bidesk will launch a public sale for its exchange token, BDK. It will be the first token in their IEO labs. BDK will serve as an important medium of exchange for the entire Bidesk ecosystem: Allocation in IEO’s, discount in trading fee, airdrop reward and more use-cases to come with the development of the platform.

Bidesk also plans an aggressive buy back of tokens from the secondary market, and then burn them to reduce the token supply with the growth of the platform. The team has also promised to support the liquidity for their token to make sure it’s attractive for their investors.

Token Sale Details

• Time: 2020/02/27 13:00 PM (UTC) — 2020/02/28 13:00 PM (UTC)
• Sale Type: First Come First Serve System
• Token Name: Bidesk (BDK)
• Hard Cap: 240,000 USD
• Total Token Supply: 100,000,000 BDK
• Total Token Allocated: 3,000,000 BDK (3% of Total Token Supply)
• Public Sale Token Price: 1 BDK = 0.08 USD
• Individual Contribution Limit: 750 USD
• Supported Currency: USDT
• Token Distribution: BDK will be issued as ERC20 within 24 hours after the token sale

Token Economics and Vesting Schedule

Above all, what made me think that Bidesk is not just another money grab is its token sale. They plan to sell just $240,000 worth of their token in the public sale. I’ve seen exchanges raised millions WITHOUT a working product while Bidesk has already been in the market for 2 years. The Risk Reward ratio here is just too good to miss out on.

How I interpret this is that the team will only make a profit when their token does well. They are more focused on the long run. As for other sales, the company has their investors in mind with the slow lockup release for tokens form other rounds protecting their public investors.

• Max supply: 100,000,000 BDK
• Public Sale: 3% of total supply. Public sale token price is $0.08.
• Private Sale: 30% of total supply. Private sale token price is $0.09. Vesting schedule is as follows: 1 month lock-up after TGE, about 1.67% per month over the following 18 months.
• Seed Sale: 18% of the total supply. Seed sale token price is $0.08. Vesting schedule is as follows: 3 months lock-up after TGE, 1% per month over the following 18 months.
• Team: Tokens comprise 10% of the total supply. Vesting schedule is as follows: 12 months lock-up after TGE, about 0.21% per month over the following 48 months.
• Foundation: Tokens comprise 20% of the total supply. Vesting schedule is as follows: 12 months lock-up after TGE, about 0.42% per month over the following 48months.
• Ecosystem: Tokens comprise 10% of the total supply. Vesting schedule is as follows: 12 months lock-up after TGE, about 0.21% per month over the following 48 months.
• Incentives: Tokens comprise 9% of the total supply. Vesting schedule is as follows: 3 months lock-up, about 0.38% per month over the following 24 months.

Token Unlock Schedule

Token Use Cases

• The Bidesk native token “BDK” is promoted by our platform. The total supply is 100 million which will never be increased. BDK token is a decentralized blockchain digital asset issued by Ethereum, based on the ERC20 standard token of Ethereum blockchain.
• Holders of the BDK token will enjoy multiple benefits and privileges. BDK will serve as an important medium of exchange for the entire Bidesk ecosystem. The usage scenarios of BDK will continue to evolve with the development of Bidesk’s business and functions. BDK’s specific usage scenarios are, but not limited to, the following: Allocation in IEO’s, discount in trading fee, airdrop reward.
• Token supply and price appreciation/depreciation has a direct relationship. Therefore, we will reduce token supply to achieve scarcity and higher token value. This reduction will be achieved by buying back tokens from the secondary market, and then burned. To maintain a transparent relationship with our customers, all buy-back records will be made public.

Summary

Given the research above, Bidesk has laid out the groundworks to be a challenger in the crypto exchange space. With its current marketing and promotional efforts (which i personally see lacking in other exchanges), it will certainly carve out a piece of the market. The network effect then slowly starts to take effect as more and more users join the platform. Bidesk knows that it will start off as one of the many exchanges a user will have, but getting the user to their platform is their main strategy. Afterwards, the product will keep the users wanting for more. Having a good product and marketing backgrounds, Bidesk will surely continue to surprise in the coming year.

The low raise is certainly a great stimulant to generate demand and discussion about their token and in increasing their userbase. It reminds me about FTX exchange, they did a low raise but was able to carve out a niche in the space. Their token did extremely well at more than 20x and still continues to not only hold up its price but also keep growing. With a good focus on UX, liquidity and customer support, Bidesk has a good chance of being the dark horse in the 2020 Crypto Exchange Race.