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How Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs) Function and Why They’re Becoming Popular

In comparison with the previous decade, this decade has been experiencing a sudden surge in the use of cryptocurrencies. As a result, the work behind constantly modifying and upgrading cryptocurrencies is happening at a rapid pace. Digital currencies are slowly taking over the use of traditional currencies in many industries. With the speed at which cryptocurrencies are progressing, the world is experiencing the emergence of new concepts. These concepts have the potential of further reshaping the whole digital currency spectrum. One such crucial development in recent times has been the decentralized exchanges or in other words DEXs. Conventional exchanges still depend on a central authority that manages all transactions and establishes regulatory norms. However, decentralized exchanges function in such a way that is in alignment with the decentralized characteristic of the cryptocurrencies. This news article, thus, reveals the way these decentralized exchanges function and how they are becoming increasingly popular across crypto traders.

Understanding Decentralized Exchanges

Experts have confirmed that the advent of decentralized exchanges is one of the extremely useful developments that the crypto trading world has witnessed in recent times. So, basically, these exchanges are platforms that facilitate consumers to perform crypto trading explicitly with other consumers in the absence of any intermediary. Essentially, under these platforms, crypto trading takes place without the presence of any mediator. Under centralized exchanges, consumers deposit their amounts into the wallet of an exchange. But, DEXs function on a peer-to-peer basis. It indicates that transactions will take place exclusively between the traders. These transactions are supported by smart contracts on the blockchain.

A unique feature of a decentralized exchange is that there is no central authority. As there is no authority supervising or working as a middleman in a DEX, users have enhanced control over their assets. It guarantees that the users can maintain ownership of their private keys across the trading procedure. Such an underlying concept behind DEXs works perfectly for the cryptocurrencies, which were invented with a vision of providing decentralized control and endorsing enhanced pecuniary freedom.

How It Operates

To ideally comprehend the way every decentralized exchange functions, it is crucial to first understand the primary mechanisms. A smart contract is an important notion supporting the effective functioning of decentralized exchanges. At the heart of DEXs is the utilization of smart contracts. These are self-executing contracts that have the terms of the arrangement written in a code format. Such contracts have the ability to automate the procedure of matching the sellers and purchasers, performing trades, and controlling funds. All of these tasks happen in the absence of any central authority.

The functioning of the DEXs happens generally in four different ways. An extremely common framework for DEXs is the AMM system. This system is also known as the automated market maker. AMMs do not utilize conventional order books and instead, depend on liquidity pools. Consumers can offer liquidity to such pools through the deposit of their assets. These pools are then utilized to perform trades on a specific DEX platform. In this process, the liquidity providers receive a portion of the transaction charges offered by the exchange. Next, there are decentralized exchanges that are working by using a peer-to-peer framework of order books. Within this setup, the crypto users can position sell or buy orders. These orders are then recorded on the blockchain, which allows other crypto users to either accept or reject these orders. In this way, the entire trade is conducted between only the two parties. This framework can be helpful as it provides better flexibility in order types and pricing. However, this model is less liquid in comparison with AMM-based exchanges.

Without a doubt, decentralized exchanges are extremely helpful and another appealing feature of these exchanges is that they do not take custody of any users’ funds. Unlike centralized exchanges, DEXs allow crypto traders to trade straightaway from their wallets. This gives the users comprehensive control over their assets all the time. Finally, DEXs are also known for offering enhanced security, which is way better than any centralized exchange. As there is no central server that can be hacked, the hazard of losing funds because of a security breach is rare. It is also interesting that DEXs can operate with minimal personal information of their users, providing great privacy.

The Reason Behind Its Popularity

The above exploration clearly positions the effective procedure through which every DEX works. When a crypto trader is trading on a DEX platform, they know that they have holistic control over their assets, which is a big advantage of using these platforms. Besides, DEXs offer unmatched privacy to their users, which is uncommon across centralized exchanges. Since there is no central server, there is a very limited risk of hacking, making it a lot safer than any other platform. Finally, the rising usage of DeFi is another reason that has been constantly boosting the reputation of DEXs among crypto traders.