Michael Oved helped Virtu Financial Inc. become the most consistently profitable market maker in the history of electronic trading. Now he has his sights set on revolutionizing how digital currency exchanges operate.
The new company he cofounded, AirSwap, sounds like a contradiction in terms: A decentralized exchange. Made possible by the nascent technology of the ethereum blockchain, there's no central authority around which buyers and sellers gather. Instead, a computer program known as a smart contract lets investors find each other anywhere in the world to trade cryptocurrencies. There are no user accounts and identities are hidden as trading is solely on a peer-to-peer basis.
"What's novel about that is there's no New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq in the middle, setting rules," said Richard Johnson, a market-structure analyst at Greenwich Associates who specializes in blockchain, a system of networked computers that verify transactions in minutes rather than days as in the current banking system and make digital currencies such as bitcoin possible. "That's cool, we haven't seen that before."
The idea goes to the heart of what many blockchain supporters want to accomplish: eliminating middlemen in industries from finance to real estate to health care. It also makes digital currencies immune to recent efforts to control their trading by governments such as China, which is closing cryptocurrency exchanges within its borders. "It's impossible to shut down, and you don't even need an account," Oved said. "People won't even know Chinese traders are on the system."
Previously: It Seems China is Shutting Down its Blockchain Economy
(Score: 4, Funny) by jmorris on Friday September 29 2017, @08:21PM (2 children)
Sure they won't. Because this system is so l33t that it can operate on the Internet undetectable by a determined police state. Goods and services can be bought and delivered undetected, local currencies can be exchanged in/out of this thing undetected. If you could really transact business undetected you could do it tax free. Raise your hand if you think that will be allowed to happen? Remember, the tax collector has as many accountants and guns as needed, especially in a police state.
But this time it is different, because muh magic crypto beans. Right. The DN troll above is making more sense than the article.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @10:56PM
Didn't you get the memo? The Republicans got rid of a lot of those accountants and tax collectors. Can't have too many rich people being audited.
This won't help though, it's for poor people to avoid taxes.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 30 2017, @01:12PM
In a police state, they wouldn't care. The black market would be overlooked to some degree, because it would be needed in order for the state to function. They'd just shake it down every now and then for tax revenue. And what is the point of using a crypto currency when the government can just take anything you buy with it?