I think a lot of people misunderstand why we built a CEX and not a DEX.
There's a lot of great people building DEXs. I don't think we need another one, and I'm happy to use and support other DEXs as we currently do in Backpack. However, there's not that many people building great CEXs, although there are some terrific ones I admire and respect. The nature of a CEX is the nature of traditional finance, making for a totally different problem with a totally different set of a challenges and a totally different strategy for achieving success.
I think a lot of people confuse DEXs and CEXs because of the trading component, but that's only one part of what a CEX does, and, in my view, is only important during the bootstrapping phase of a CEX--and will become less important over time.
In the limit, centralized exchanges aren't just trading apps. They're general financial services providers not only for speculation, but for managing your financial life. They will look more like fintechs than they will anything else--and that's because CEXs are companies, not protocols. It's not just about crypto. It's about all of finance.
Today, and for the foreseeable future, most of the world's value is off chain organized and controlled by the legal code that runs the world. And it's the folks that can assemble the legal code alongside actual code--e.g. with well built custody solutions--that are best positioned to bring that value on chain. Stablecoins are the best example of this dynamic. Circle for example is just a centralized exchange even though they don't call themselves that. Tokenized stocks are another great examle of this--see Kraken and its latest tokenized stock offering. Self custody is important, it's why we have a wallet and continue to invest heavily into it, but in the same way that DEXs are the back bone of the on chain world, custodians are the backbone of the real world--and this will become more and more important as the industry matures and the world comes on chain. Eventually, we won't have DeFi or CeFi. We won't have CEX or DEX--we will just have finance. And I think it's the regulated CEXs that need to do their part by not just building a great crypto product, but by bringing all of traditional finance on chain to grow the on chain economy.
And although bridging traditional finance on chain is important, there's so, so much more. We need to go beyond the degens that make up the space today and cross the chasm to the bigger world. How do we do that? Well, if I'm managing my life savings in a finance app, I need to be able to pick up the phone and call someone to get help. If I want to apply for a mortgage to buy a home, I need to be able to walk into my local bank branch and talk to my banker. If I want to prepare for retirement, I need to make a retirement plan with a financial advisor to manage my IRA. If I die, I need a contingency plan for my loved ones need to be taken care of when I'm gone. It's about building not only great product, great support, and great services--with many different problems to solve that are not only technical, but social, legal, compliance, and support. An on chain, crypto native financial institution that re-imagines your relationship with money.
That's why we're building a CEX.
I'm curious — if you could go back 2 years, would you start a CEX again or a DEX instead?