Exchanges are the Arteries of the Industry, Will They Survive the Futurama Summit?

Economics and finance use demand and supply to deduce, interpret and even implement variety of regulating and governing frameworks. For many other services, the demand & supply lens is not used to analyze the fact that when either side develops asymmetrically faster than the other, regulation is often caught short. As cryptocurrencies and passionate ICOs’ announced their presence in 2017, sovereign regulators were caught off guard with archaic laws. Now with the greater part of 2018 over, in a complete market reversal, ICOs’ have been caught short on multiple grounds. Short with both declining funds raised due to lower ETH to USD price as well as token listing challenges on crypto-exchanges. ETH price decrease is fairly easy to understand and many ICOs’ have successfully cashed out a chunk of their capital converting it to fiat during better market times. Exchange listing of various ICO tokens however, brought about a completely new set of problems.

From the perspective of end users of various cryptocurrency products, it would be foolish to expect them to go to a different market for every single token. End users expect this space to be a central repository to buy any amount of tokens for their customized usage. As platforms like Ethereum, NEO and many others have decided to allow the creation of tokens for various projects with an unprecedented ease, more and more projects chose the ERC20 for establishing their token. Availability of tokens with a listing and enough liquidity on exchanges were two problems to tackle right after their business product implementation. Amazingly enough, what slipped the mind of the collective cryptocurrency space consciousness is that while blockchain eased the creation of potential securities, one for each ICO/start-up, blockchain didn’t ease the process of listing on a centralized regulated (or controlled) exchanges. As a result, ICOs began facing a myriad of problems in getting listed along with falling ETH prices. In retrospect, one can draw parallels with the bigger cousin of the market – equity. Why is it time-taking, difficult and arduous for new equities to list on big exchanges? One of the main reasons is the extensive background testing, scrutiny, checks, and further due diligence involved behind each security listing. No wonder the present network of exchanges is equipped to handle the vast number of cryptocurrencies coming into existence by the hundreds every day. Naturally this has led to a myriad of new problems, limitation and also unfair practices, kickbacks for getting listed on top exchanges that amount to 400 BTC according to some rumours going around.

This is a crucial situation that should be tackled by the community before regulators find more reasons to get their hands on the space. This situation in particular, with limitations and unfair practices for getting listed – could be exactly what the regulators need to tighten future regulatory framework on the crypto-industry. These heart-pumping questions will be discussed this September 10th to the 13th at Futurama Blockchain Innovators Summit Spain on the Balearic island of Ibiza with confirmed participating exchanges being so far – Bithmub (the largest South-Korean crypto exchange), bitINKA, EXMO, Coinsbank, Golix, Evercoin, Paxful, OKEX, BTCC, and Bitsonic. The Summit is headed by partners from Coinsbank, Exponential and Blockchain Capital’s Brock Pierce and promises to be an exciting platform for discussing and creating solutions for the future of the crypto industry.

Courtesy of our Editor-in-Chief Miguel Francis-Santiago, please use special promo-code MIGUEL at Futurama Blockchain Innovators Summit Spain to get a 10% discount on tickets.