Day 14 - Looking At DEXs

Introduction

Hello everyone and welcome to another post for my blog Vendata's journey of the crypto world! This article marks two weeks since I sent my first article, and I feel that I have learnt so much, digging deeper through the crypto mine. In this article, I will be looking through another significant crypto service, especially about the decentralised world: DEXs. DEX stands for Decentralised Exchanges, which is self-explanatory of what it is. If you did not get was DEXs are, they are crypto exchanges, meaning you can swap from one cryptocurrency to another, in a decentralised manner (i.e. under no legal authority). DEXs are extremely important in the crypto world, particularly in recent times where people are searching for ways to interact within the crypto world privately and securely. Although there are centralised exchanges (e.g. Binance, Coinbase and Bitfinex) that do effective and fast trades, they do have some drawbacks, which DEXs cover. The biggest drawback with centralised exchanges is the fact that they limit your trading moves in so many ways, including withdrawal maximums and cryptocurrencies available. There are so many DEXs out there, each with their unique features, but I will be focusing on a few of the tops which look good: Uniswap, 1inch, Quickswap and PancakeSwap.

Uniswap

Uniswap has been mentioned a lot in my previous articles, so I already have a good idea of what it is. It is the most obvious DEX to mention for a variety of reasons. Uniswap's native cryptocurrency has the highest market cap in DEX cryptocurrencies, it is the most popular with its sparkling pink unicorn as its logo, and has a promising future ahead. Although Uniswap is so great in these aspects, I have heard that there is one huge problem with it that makes it unbearable to many: fees. If you have used Uniswap, you would know what I mean. The fees are so bad that it is impossible to trade with low amounts, all of it vanishing away in fees! However, I have heard that Uniswap is working on this issue, which is a good sign. Also, going back to Uniswap, I am finding that the fees are not so bad as I have thought. For example, trading from 10USDT to ETH has hardly any fees for low amounts, which you can see below. Overall, Uniswap is a good DEX and I have great expectations for its future!

1inch

1inch is another DEX that is similar to Uniswap. The interface essentially is the same, but interacting with it now, it turns out that I was wrong with Uniswap! 1inch is the one with fee issues! Doing the same example as before with 10USDT to ETH, the fees are far more exorbitant than with Uniswap: 63.65 USD! That is more than 6 times the amount I entered to trade with, which is ridiculous! I hope 1inch is working on this issue as well because it is such a great impact on its service. It seems that 1inch is for the rich who have millions, or even billions, swapping seamlessly and earning enormous profits, ignoring the fees. Why? Because they are rich!

Quickswap

I have heard in the crypto community that Quickswap has one of the lowest fees in DEXs. Let's test it out with the same example of 10 USDT to ETH... good news, the fees are low! Quickswap also has an almost identical interface to Uniswap, even more, alike than 1inch! The only difference I currently see is the logo and colour, nothing else! DEXs seem to be all the same here with the only appealing difference is fees. Do not get me wrong, DEXs are great, but it seems that they are plain in their service. However, what could you expect? And thus there is not much to talk of Quickswap. If you want a description for Quickswap, then I could easily just go with "Uniswap but blue."

PancakeSwap

In one of my earlier articles, I talked about PancakeSwap's farming service, which if I am not mistaken was great. I also mentioned that PancakeSwap had a variety of other services, and one of these services is its exchange, most likely its main one as suggested by its name (Pancake"Swap"). PancakeSwap is a great exchange. What makes it unique to the other DEXs I went through before is the blockchain it is based on. All the others are based on the Ethereum blockchain, but PancakeSwap is based on the Binance blockchain! I find Binance not only an amazing crypto exchange but also an amazing cryptocurrency that has done great things with many more to come, making PancakeSwap very appealing from the other DEXs. With the fees, it is agreeable, always stuck at 0.2%. Applying the trading example of before, I get a fee of 0.02 USDT, hardly eating into my trading amount!

Conclusion

This concludes today's article. It was interesting to look through some of the top DEXs, learning about the main bits of each and its place in the crypto world. Out of the DEXs I mention, I would go with PancakeSwap 90% of the time, then Uniswap or Quickswap if I need to do an exchange when not possible in PancakeSwap. However, I doubt I would even use DEXs soon, using the Binance crypto exchange!

Looking through some of the top DEXs, I learn new crypto information, developing my knowledge to grow in the crypto world.