Bitfinex builds EOS-powered ‘high performance’ exchange EOSfinex

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A new decentralized platform is in the works for cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, and it’s one that promises to enable “fast, transparent and trustless” trading of digital assets.

In a Medium post, the exchange announced that it has teamed up with EOS.IO, a blockchain protocol for decentralized applications. The partnership will utilize the EOS.IO technology to build EOSfinex, a first-of-its-kind high performance decentralized exchange.

Block.one-published EOS.IO is a blockchain protocol that can be used to develop decentralized applications. It’s similar to Ethereum in the sense that it is also a smart contract enabled hosting platform targeting open-source projects. EOS, however, aims to offer a more scalable blockchain that can be used for large-scale businesses. The EOS.IO software provides accounts, authentication, databases, and the scheduling of applications across multiple CPU cores and/or clusters, according to Block.one.

The plan, according to Bitfinex, is to combine the scalability and speed of EOS.IO with the company’s expertise to deliver an “on chain” decentralized exchange—one that uses digital tokens instead of fiat currencies for trading. Decentralized exchanges are slowly gaining popularity among cryptocurrency enthusiasts due to their multiple benefits, including eliminating the single point of failure problem commonly seen in centralized exchanges.

“A continuous goal of Bitfinex has been to research and sandbox the capabilities of various protocol-level technologies that meet the rigorous requirements of a high volume, blockchain-based trading platform. This vision has led us to EOS.IO, whose goal of processing tens of thousands of transactions per seconds, with minimal fees and confirmation times, is heavily aligned with our ambition,” the cryptocurrency exchange said in its post.

Bitfinex is one of the largest crypto exchanges by trading volume. Despite its popularity, the exchange has also been criticized for its connection with Tether, which is believed to have been issuing USDT tokens without being covered by the U.S. dollar. Recently, Bitfinex has also been hit with reports that its U.S.-based corporate investors had a hard time accessing the site’s margin trading facility.