DEX Masterclass 103: Navigating Sparkdex
Sparkdex is the DEX created by Bitspark, and as a gateway to Bitshares it has many of the same functionalities as the Bitshares DEX. This episode of the DEX Masterclass gets down into the practical side of things and walks you through each of the main sections you’ll find on Sparkdex.
If you haven’t already, create an account on Sparkdex so you can follow the steps detailed in the video to find your way around the DEX.
What you’ll learn
- How to create an account
- How to find your way on the Dashboard
- Finding more information through Explorer
- Deposit, Withdraw and Send
- Extra features
DEX Masterclass 103 Recorded Video
Creating a Sparkdex account
Go to the Create Account form to choose your account name. Note that this name is public on the Blockchain — everyone will be able to see this. Unlike with Bitcoin where money is sent to an address, on BitShares it’s the account name where people send money to.
The form will generate a password for you, which you need to store safely because no one can reset the password for you. It’s your account and your keys, if you lose them there is nothing we can do to get them back.
These credentials can log you into any DEX on the BitShares so next to Sparkdex, you can go to Bitshares.org and login with the same account.
After your account is created, it is registered on the Blockchain which takes a couple minutes to be verified.
The first time you log in to the Sparkdex, you will get an intro tutorial that shows you around the Dashboard screen.
If you look at the market, you will see price charts using TradingView and below that more information on the order book which gives you an overview of all the asks and bids, plus the lowest ask and the highest bid. The difference between the lowest ask and highest big is called the spread.
The order submission form is where you place buy and sell orders.
On the right hand side, you will see other core markets such as Sparkdex.BTC, ZEPH, Sparkdex.HKD etc. Looking at one currency, you will see a list of all the different pairs to that currency and the volume for those markets.
Dashboard — Top level indicators
At the top level of the Dashboard, you’ll see last price, last executed trade, previous market trades and the volume. Volume is denominated in the base currency: if you’re looking at the 24 hour BTC/BITUSD market and volume says 44 million, it means 44 million BTS was traded in the last 24 hours.
An interesting way to look at the market is by viewing market depth. Market depth is a collection of all the different orders, and you can view it by changing the price chart to a depth chart by clicking ‘show market depth’. This view shows you if there are any walls that exist in the market at certain price points.
Explore page
‘Explore’ gives you a live view of the Bitshares blockchain. It shows you the block producer, transaction count per block, stats such as transactions per second and different types of orders taking place across the DEX.
Under ‘assets’, you can search for any of the coins on the BitShares blockchain, and see specifics such as max supply. All accounts created on the blockchain can be found under ‘accounts’.
The ‘witnesses’ tab gives you visibility into the block verifiers following the Delegated Proof of Stake (DPos), which we discussed in the previous episode. Related to that, you can see the accounts in the committee under the ‘committee’ tab.
‘Markets’ gives you a look into all the different markets on the DEX and their respective base supply, volume, price and change.
Lastly, under ‘fees’ you’ll find an overview for all fees for all the different types of operations and transactions you can do on the blockchain.
To make a deposit, click the dropdown menu in the navigation bar and select ‘deposit’. Select currency and gateway to display your specific currency address. You will be shown both a QR code and a full address which you can copy to your clipboard. Withdrawals work the same way. After selecting the currency, you need to nominate to which address you want to withdraw to.
To send funds to another account on the BitShares blockchain, go to ‘send’ from the dropdown menu, type in the receiving account’s name, select currency and specify amount.
You can download your history in CSV or Excel format. This is helpful for power users that trade a lot and need to keep track of their accounting.
The news section curates all the news and updates related to the Bitshares ecosystem.
Assets shows you the number of assets you’ve created.
You can buy a lifetime membership stat which gives you access to lower rates. Information related to that can be found under ‘Membership stats’.
Everything related to voting such as worker proposals or committee members is under ‘voting’.
In the next episode
It’s time to put some essential tools in your trading toolbox.
Originally published at https://www.bitspark.io.
