Epiphany Asset Exchange: Connecting NEO Smart Economy to Global Fiat Markets
Epiphany is a digital asset exchange and a trading platform launching in 2018, with a goal to build a scalable and decentralised exchange on the NEO platform, leveraging a well tested smart contract platform using NEO’s unique DBFT consensus mechanism that allows for efficient contract execution with minimal transaction fees, while managing all the assets without granting control to third parties, thus ensuring maximum security to their investments. Apart from a traditional asset exchange, Epiphany will also establish a quant trading platform. Licensed institutions can benefit from and develop financial derivatives based on digital assets, where the value of the derivative contract will be dependent on the base asset. Epiphany will become one of the first exchanges to offer users the option of trading and managing derivatives.
Decentralised Trading: The Need Of The Hour
Digital Asset Exchanges have traditionally been following a centralised architecture, with investors used to sending their funds into the wallets of centralised exchanges, who then control the funds and allow the investors to trade with them. Some examples of centralised trading platforms include Coinbase, Binance, Huobi, etc. However, this scenario has several drawbacks. Cryptocurrency investors are only too familiar with the theft at Mt. Gox, where over $200m worth Bitcoin was stolen. Infact the pains are felt even today!
With rampant increase in incidents of hacks, thefts and robberies associated with centralised exchanges, the need of the hour is an option where traders of digital assets can invest through a platform that ensures maximum security to its users, while not compromising of efficiency and throughput.
Growth of Decentralised Exchanges
Given all the uncertainty and insecurity surrounding centralised exchanges, several alternate options have used it to their advantage. These include decentralised exchanges where the funds never leave the control of investors.
While Digital Asset Exchanges are growing in number, a recent statistic showed that only 23% of such exchanges allow traders to retain complete control of their funds. Even today, the majority of asset trading platforms and exchanges require traders to transfer their funds to the account of the exchanges, who then facilitate the transfer. Decentralised exchanges on the other hand allow investors to trade while retaining complete control of the assets in accounts controlled by the investors. Examples of decentralised asset exchanges include EtherDelta, Ox relays, and Switcheo. When looking at blockchain technology today, the decentralised asset exchange space has among the largest scope for growth. However, one often cited shortcoming of many decentralised exchanges is that they do not offer support for fiat currencies.
Epiphany aims to utilize the NEO blockchain for on-chain transactions, thus enabling investors to make transactions in a truly decentralised manner without compromising on security or having to trust any middle men or server or exchange. Throughout the trade, the investors will be in complete control of their digital assets. The entire trade will be managed by programmed and audited smart contracts, and if in any case the conditions of the trade are not met by either party, the trade smart contract will not execute the trade.
Key Components of Epiphany Asset Exchange
The Epiphany platform will be built around:
- Fiat Exchange: A key component of the Epiphany network is the fiat exchange, enabled by Epiphany’s partners who are registered with the FINCEN as a licensed money transmitter in over 12 states including California, Texas, Illinois and Washington. This allows licensed traders and institutions to trade and exchange the US Dollar with several digital assets.
In due time, Epiphany also has plans to scale and partner with exchanges and financial institutions across the world, to provide more currency options for investors to trade, and also to bring digital assets to several countries across the world.
2. Digital Asset Exchange: Epiphany will include a digital asset exchange tailored for both C2C and institutional investors. Derivative and ETF products based on digital asset can also be created and traded.
3. Quant Trading: Epiphany will also provide a platform where new investors can be guided on the best investment practices. Quant trading helps identifying beneficial trading opportunities by using programs that perform quantitative analysis on real time chart data.
Security
As a digital asset exchange, security considerations for both users of the platform and for the internal systems form an important part of Epiphany’s vision. Apart from enabling trading of assets on chain using decentralized transactions without the need of any intermediaries, Epiphany also incorporates best in class practices for maintaining end to end security of the investor’s accounts. This includes IP level checks, login control, multi factor authentication including SMS verification, PIN control to initiate trades, and in-consistent volume and frequency based alert triggers.
To ensure security of Epiphany’s internal systems and backend, a multi-tier architecture is followed including DDOS protection at the front end, separate cold and hot wallets and multi-signature wallets to control access of funds. The front end of the platform is separated from the back end to maintain secure access at each level.
The Epiphany Ecosystem
An ever growing number of companies and institutions in the blockchain space have come together to form the Epiphany Ecosystem, which includes established capital asset companies such as Gold Glory Blockchain Company Inc, with an ultimate vision to provide a network for collaboration and introduction of digital asset exchanges across the world.
A key component of this vision are Epiphany Supernodes — which are several independent trading platforms within the global Epiphany ecosystem. Supernodes can provide trading services to investors within their specific geographic regions and comply with local regulations across the world. This is to the benefit of investors, who can easily make financial transactions that are in line with their country’s regulatory trade framework, instead of relying on cross border transfers.
Epiphany Supernodes will expand the availability of digital asset exchanges all across the world. Furthermore, the global system of supernodes existing within one ecosystem will promote cross platform trading, increase the efficiency of order matching, liquidity in the order books and will result in the creation of a strong secondary markets.
Currently, Epiphany is in development and is scheduled for launch in late 2018. For more information about the Epiphany project and the Digital Asset Exchange, you can visit the website and also read the whitepaper.
