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Coinbase acquires decentralized cryptocurrency trading platform Paradex

reuters.com

51–60 of 66 posts

Re: Coinbase acquires decentralized cryptocurrency trading platform Paradex

#51
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no chance that bitfinex and/or Tether will be acquired by any legitimate institution, much less Coinbase. They are far to steeped in fraudulent behaviour to ever go legitimate without regulatory punishment.

Why not? Circle (US based) bought Poloniex which is one of the biggest Tether exchanges. If you're Coinbase and you get to buy Bitfinex/Tether at a firesale price + pay some fines to the SEC if needed, why not?

What's wrong with Poloniex exactly?

Re: Coinbase acquires decentralized cryptocurrency trading platform Paradex

#52
post #4

Circle acquiring Poloniex changed the game. The rumored assurances from regulators that Poloniex's prior KYC/AML transgressions would be ignored as long as Circle fixed them going forward was all it really took. Now we are seeing a huge wave of M&A deals while Coinbase uses its very strong financial position to buy up the the less compliant but cashflow-rich overseas exchanges. In particular I wouldn't be surprised t…

> the whole cryptocurrency sector seems fairly irrational to me. And I say that as someone who was VERY interested/knowledgable about bitcoin during the 2013 bubble

I'm not disagreeing with what you said, but I would add that if you were very interested before the 2013 bubble and then lost interest, you were/are irrational as well. Like everyone else you're taking views on the price based on the price.

Re: Coinbase acquires decentralized cryptocurrency trading platform Paradex

#53
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which begs the question - what tokens are actually worth trading in the first place? I think we're getting closer to tokenizing actual securities. Similar to how TrueUSD is tokenizing U.S. Dollars, I think we're fairly close ( 5 years out) from NASDAQ officially tokenizing their stocks ( as an erc20 on the ethereum blockchain)

Nobody seriously wants equities on a blockchain. Securities need to be able to be split, merged, re-issued, forcibly transferred by courts, et cetera .

Harbor and Polymath are working on tokens which can accomplish all those things. The claim is that tokenized securities can reduce the number of middlemen needed to issue new securities, so shares could be traded on individual apartment buildings, etc. Nobody thinks moving Apple stock to a blockchain would change much.

I’m not advocating this argument, just relaying it since you asked.

Re: Coinbase acquires decentralized cryptocurrency trading platform Paradex

#54
post #46

> While we work to integrate with Coinbase, the Paradex app will be temporarily unavailable, starting today, May 23, at 3pm ET. What's the point of a decentralized exchange if the frontend code can be shutdown at will?

Your funds are safe! You can trade directly from your hardware wallet. Your money is never on the exchange. If a decentralized exchange shutdowns you can simply use another.

Re: Coinbase acquires decentralized cryptocurrency trading platform Paradex

#55

I had to lookup what exactly Paradex was and it seems the platform is based on 0x. Given that decentralized exchanges have issues like front running, open arbitrage etc[0], I think this might not be a wise move. [0]: http://hackingdistributed.com/2017/08/13/cost-of-decent/

Will Warren, co-founder of 0x addressed these topics in two blog posts

https://blog.0xproject.com/front-running-griefing-and-the-pe...

https://blog.0xproject.com/front-running-griefing-and-the-pe...

Re: Coinbase acquires decentralized cryptocurrency trading platform Paradex

#56
post #31

> The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Acquihire? It would be weird for Coinbase to take full advantage of a descentralized exchange because many of the tokens clash with regulations and even being decentralized makes Coinbase the owner and target for SEC.

Both coinbase and 0x have filed for regulations with the SEC. Will be interesting to see what the SEC decides.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1735689/000173568918...

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1735709/000173570918...

Re: Coinbase acquires decentralized cryptocurrency trading platform Paradex

#57
post #46

> While we work to integrate with Coinbase, the Paradex app will be temporarily unavailable, starting today, May 23, at 3pm ET. What's the point of a decentralized exchange if the frontend code can be shutdown at will?

> What's the point of a decentralized exchange if the frontend code can be shutdown at will?

You can have decentralization with respect to some components of the exchange and not others. In the case of Paradex it seems the point of decentralization is that you don't have to trust the exchange for custody. That's quite good by itself, even if they can shut down the frontend at will.

Re: Coinbase acquires decentralized cryptocurrency trading platform Paradex

#58
post #48
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it allows people anywhere to access the aforementioned security. It also has a lot lower friction for all the participants.

People can access a security today, anywhere. By using their broker over the internet. Can you give specific, real-world examples about how the "friction" is lower? And what precisely do you mean by "friction" - lower cost? ease of use? something else?

Only if you are using a very narrow definition of "people", "anywhere" and "security".

I am in Argentina. I can make a VC-style investment on a company being founded in Europe tomorrow and resell my shares 3 months from now to another investor in Australia with no middlemen, brokers, filings, etc.

That just didn't work before. It would have been impossible for me to do that. Its also more risky in terms of regulatory protection, of course. But in any scenario ICOs are huge disruption for the VC industry, and if the crypto market matures, I expect that to expand into other spaces.

Specific instances of friction: transferring funds, assigning shares, lack of liquidity of both shares and secondary markets (or, quite simply, lack of markets).

Re: Coinbase acquires decentralized cryptocurrency trading platform Paradex

#59
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment makes me sad. Lots of bad info. All securities exchanges incur fees, varying based on wherher you’re eating or supplying liquidity. I forget what these are called, but companies like Interactive brokers pass those fees on. Robinhood eats the fees for you. With coinbase, you pay a 0% fee as long as you use GDAX, which is a no brainer, and place limit orders that are not immediately executable e.g. sell $.…

Re: Robinhood fees. Who cares about the fees that the wholesalers pay -- It's about the end-user experience. And for that matter, you don't seem to understand the full picture on how routing/fees work with retail orders for US equities. Robinhood orders typically get routed to wholesalers like Virtu, Two Sigma or Citadel that actually execute the orders at the prevailing market price on public exchanges. Robinhood ge…

>Do you really expect the typical person to set a bunch of passive limit orders on GDAX until they get filled? What kind of user experience is that? I would be willing to wager that 95%+ of Coinbase users are just buying and selling directly on Coinbase (and paying the extremely high fees) and have no idea what GDAX is.

Of course that's the case. I never said everyone does that. I said it's a no-brainer to do it.

Re: Coinbase acquires decentralized cryptocurrency trading platform Paradex

#60
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just making HFT bots to trade around a bunch of monopoly money that is useless other than hype-driven speculation? How is that different from the rest of the financial market? The huge chunk of all HFT trading is siphoning the money from real investors, it has no real value for the economy. HFT traders hold no positions in the market.

The assets that are being traded represent some other economic activity. For equities trading, for example the shares actually are a piece of a revenue earning company. The trading activity benefits society by allowing the company to sell additional shares to the public when needed, to raise further capital, for example. For futures the contracts represent a guarantee to buy or sell a commodity at a known amount and…

What you write applies to regular investors, funds, investment banks, portfolio managers, etc. Speculators in general.

But you should really read up on what HFT is. I recommend the book Flash Boys by Michael Lewis. HFT traders do not "trade" in the market in the usual sense. They don't optimize markets, they don't bet on anything, they don't take any risk. Every other investor takes risks (calculated), and that's their contribution to the market. They hedge risks and discover prices for those underlying assets you are talking about. HFTs are exploiting the markets, take no risks and siphon the money out of those investors that actually provide a service for the market.

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