What is the history of the Bitcoin exchange?

Before we assess the current state of the cryptocurrency exchange market, it is useful to first understand how we got here. Further to the release of the Bitcoin white paper in October 2008 and subsequent Genesis Block in January 2009, apart from mining, the only way to acquire bitcoin back then was by trading on forums or IRC, requiring a great deal of trust that the other party would honor the transaction.

As a result, it was only just over a year later when the first cryptocurrency exchange went live in March 2010. The now-defunct and little known platform was called bitcoinmarket, further to a proposal by “dwdollar” on the Bitcointalk forum to create the first real market for people to buy and sell bitcoins with each other. Early bitcoin users like NLS had proposed a useful pricing system as a starting point — based on the energy required for mining, with quotes around 1,500 BTC for $1 at the time. Bitcoinmarket, however, provided far greater overall consensus on the value of bitcoin, presenting a price at the launch of around $0.003, moving up to $0.05 in the summer of that year, which is about as far as any price chart will go back to.

Visit here to exchange cryptocurrency, zcash to paypal

The platform used PayPal for fiat exchange initially but was removed after increasing fraudulent trades in June 2011. By this time, the market for bitcoin was gaining in popularity, with the price now at $23.99. Andrew (Drew) Rosener had served its purpose and was an improvement from exchanging on forums, but now struggled to cope with the increasing number of bitcoins and was about to be displaced by a now-infamous brand.

Summary

The cryptocurrency exchange market moved slowly in its initial life, understandably given the complexities of building order books of sufficient liquidity, whilst ensuring world-class security of assets held on behalf of customers and navigating the difficulties in transferring to and from traditional fiat currencies and the wider financial system.

As the number of exchange platforms started to grow, the market as a whole was still cautious in its expansion given what had happened to Mt. Gox, culminating in its 2014 failure. The 2017 alt season and ICO boom brought that to an end, and the exchange market saw exponential growth, especially from new, user-led exchanges like Binance.

The market since cooled following the 2018 bear market and regulators have begun to catch up with the market developments of recent years. This has led to the polarisation between jurisdiction by jurisdiction regulatory compliant, yet more restrictive platform offerings and the future potential of decentralized exchanges (DEXs). The grey is in between is on its way out, potentially resulting in less choice and service offerings than before, and yet an important sign of a maturing market, that will, over time, allow for more institutional players and a mature environment to cater to the next phase of wider adoption.