At the heart of the cryptocurrency revolution lies a mistrust of the opaque, non-transparent nature of centralized banks. From skeptical millennials to populations victimized by corrupt banking systems in the developing world, people are craving for a transparent solution. It is in this context and space that Totle operates — offering a publicly-verifiable and open method to facilitate the movement of digital assets.
Millennial Perception of Modern Banking
Research suggests that millennials do not trust banks. For this generation, convenience equals loyalty, and the banking sector has been incredibly slow in adopting convenience-related innovations. Adding to millennials’ skepticism is the fact that, in an era of near-instantaneous fund transfers (think Venmo), banks still have cumbersome waiting periods and fluctuating fees associated with trades and money transfers. Last but not least, banks require users to place 100% of their trust in a closed system — despite the fact that hacks are nearly inevitable, and the use of their deposits is unclear. All of these factors have led to an erosion of trust among millennials.
Banking Corruption in the Developing World
Lack of trust in centralized banking systems is not just a generational thing. When trading via financial institutions, users of all stripes must place a great deal of faith in the institutions’ system of derivatives and other complex, difficult-to-understand financial instruments.
In societies plagued by corruption, where questionable business practices can easily bypass “regulatory bodies,” these tools are unreliable at best and unfair at worst. The examples — most notably in the developing world — are myriad: Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Nigeria, Colombia, Angola, Mexico, Ghana, Myanmar, Guatemala, Venezuela…the list goes on. In each of these countries, governmental and corporate corruption have sparked hyperinflation, led to instability, and shaken economic systems to their cores.
A Rough Start
For people that distrust centralized banking systems, cryptocurrencies may provide a solution. However, the concept of cryptocurrencies and their ability to disrupt trusted systems was hampered by years of centralized exchanges acting as trusted third parties in the decentralized ecosystem. Binance, OKEx, ZB.com, HitBTC, BW, DigiFinex, and BitForex are all centralized systems that require users to give up control of their funds while not allowing users to reap the full benefits of trustless systems.
Truly decentralized exchanges (DEXs), on the other hand, are trustless, open systems that allow tokens to move peer-to-peer, eliminating points of centralization. There is a lot of buzz surrounding DEXs, and it’s easy to see why: decentralized exchange systems allow users to maintain control of their funds at all times, never giving up privacy and control.
Totle and the Defi Ecosystem
The defi ecosystem includes a variety of transparent solutions. For example, our friends at MakerDao have built a credit system based allowing users to acquire debt in the form of Dai by collateralizing ETH in a smart contract. Meanwhile, Compound Finance allows you to earn interest on your assets through a transparent protocol. All functions of finance are moving towards trustless, transparent systems, where participants can be confident that the information being provided to them is true.
Totle operates in this decentralized environment. Specifically, the company has designed a system that allows users to swap or rebalance digital asset portfolios directly from their wallet. When using Totle, participants can publicly verify asset balances and the movement of tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.
While Totle currently relies on a proprietary algorithm for order matching, the company is committed to a long-term strategy of transparency, open-sourcing some or all of its systems and tools to make building the defi ecosystem as seamless as possible.
Totle is currently hosting a crowdfunding campaign on Republic, and we’d love for you to get involved! Learn more and invest here: republic.co/totle
