Republic Protocol: An Introduction
An open-source decentralized dark pool for trustless cross-chain atomic trading of Ether, ERC20 tokens and Bitcoin pairs.
Today, we’re happy to introduce Republic, a protocol for block trading significant amounts of crypto assets between BTC/ETH, BTC/ERC20 and ETH/ERC20 pairs on a decentralized dark pool.
In traditional US and European equities markets, dark pools constitute roughly 10–30% of all trades. For context, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley are a few brokers who own dark pools.
Republic Protocol removes the need for a trusted intermediary to operate a dark pool and provides crypto-economic incentives through a protocol token; enabling the development of a secure, decentralized, scalable dark pool protocol capable of handling billions in trading volume daily.
What is a dark pool?
A dark pool is an exchange where orders are placed and executed on a hidden order book.
Why use a dark pool?
- Exchange large amounts of Bitcoin, Ether and ERC20 tokens without revealing your identity or size of trade until after the trade is filled. (Further currency support will be provided in the future).
- Trade crypto assets with significant amounts of liquidity at better execution prices with minimal market impact relative to exchanges with a public order book.
The market opportunity
- Over $90B in volume between Bitcoin, Ethereum and ERC20
pairs and growing per month. - Dark pools make up 20–30% of all equities traded in US.
- 10% of all trades on EU equities markets are on dark
pools.
Who is Republic Protocol for?
- Individual traders and institutions looking to hedge significant amounts of Bitcoin to Ether-based assets and vice versa.
- Traders who want to execute atomic swaps between Bitcoin and Ethereum at market prices.
- OTC desks and trading firms who wish to have an additional avenue for sourcing liquidity.
Components and how it works
Republic Terminal
Republic Terminal is a DApp (Decentralized Application) for interacting and trading BTC, ETH and ERC20 with the underlying Republic Protocol. The interface and specifications will be made available in a future Medium post. Republic Terminal, along with all the other components of Republic are open-source.
Mining and order matching
Miners run computations to discover orders on the distributed hidden order book. This order matching process is decentralized.
Order types
- Limit orders, with an option for All or None (AON). Note: partial orders are also possible.
- Interplanetary Best Bid Offer (IBBO) midpoint peg order
We introduce the Interplanetary Best Bid Offer (IBBO) midpoint peg. An order type which trades a fixed amount of assets at the best available price. This price is derived from best available price over an aggregate of exchanges. This increases liquidity through a higher rate of order matching.
Investments and partnerships
We’re hiring developers
Contact work@republicprotocol.com with your Github/Experience/links to past projects.
