The Sequoia-backed data management startup, Band Protocol, announced Monday the mainnet of its decentralized trading app. The dapp functions as a brokerage – without a centralized authority to confirm prices or collect fees – for ether-denominated binary options.
Another participant is entering the decentralized finance (DeFi) fray.
Dubbed BitSwing, users can take long or short positions on bitcoin’s price within a one-minute time horizon. In time, additional cryptocurrencies and financial products will be added to the platform.
With binary options, traders purchase an option contract to bet on whether the price of an underlying asset will either increase (“call option”) or decrease (“put option”). BitSwing works similarly, providing users with a BTC/USD spot price to bet against.
True to binary options’ sometimes “all-or-nothing” epithet, if BitSwing traders are correct in their predictions they will double their staked ETH, or lose it all.
The tool uses data oracles to provide real-time price feeds for the market. Information is sourced from CoinGecko, Binance and Upbit, among other sites. These data providers receive rewards for providing trustworthy information from users in the form of collateralized “band” tokens.
Prior to going live, BitSwing garnered $12,000 in ETH from data query fees in its first two weeks. At that rate, “Band Protocol expects to generate over $300,000 in value per annum for its ecosystem via BitSwing alone”, the company said in a statement.
Founded in 2017, Band Protocol provides a platform for decentralized data governance on public blockchains such as ethereum, EOS and Cosmos. In February, venture capital firm Sequoia India led a $3 million seed round for the startup.
Binance Introduces Its Market Maker Program for High Volume Users
Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced in a blog post published on Sept. 30 that it is launching a market maker program.
Per the announcement, users whose monthly trading volumes exceed 1,000 Bitcoins (BTC) – or can reach such volumes – and who also have quality market making strategies can immediately join the program. Binance explains that the aim of the initiative is to bring more liquidity to the exchange.
A bid for more liquidity
The firm notes that the program is limited to the spot markets of the trading platform on a “market maker pair list” that will be periodically updated. Each market maker will be given a score based on their performance across various markets, depending on which the exchange will calculate their fees.
More precisely, the score will take into account maker volumes, bid/offer spread, total order size, order duration, weight adjustment on specific pairs. Binance requires applicants to prove their trading volumes. For example, by providing data from another exchange or by talking with their key account manager.
As Cointelegraph reported in April, competing crypto exchange OKEx also announced its market maker program, with incentives for participants in the form of lower trading fees and reduced transaction costs.