UPDATED 09:13 EDT / JULY 30 2019

BLOCKCHAIN

Blockchain (the company) launches ultrafast cryptocurrency exchange

The popular cryptocurrency wallet Blockchain Luxembourg S.A. today announced the launch of a new, ultrafast cryptocurrency exchange called The Pit.

Blockchain is credited with creating one of the first block explorers, a tool that allows users to visualize transactions on a distributed ledger, and in this case the bitcoin blockchain. The company also created an easy-to-integrate application programming interface designed to make it easy for developers to work with cryptocurrency quickly.

The company is best known for its blockchain wallet tool, which allows users to store and trade using currencies such as bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin. Since its launch, Blockchain has exceeded 40 million wallet users and the number of wallets continues to grow daily.

“We’ve now created the world’s fastest crypto exchange, clocking in at 40 microseconds per trade, capable of executing millions of orders per second,” Peter Smith, co-founder and chief executive of Blockchain, said in a blog post. “Connect your Blockchain Wallet directly and The Pit allows instant trading access and rapid transfer back to your secure storage.”

According to Smith, The Pit fills a niche in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, which continues to be a pain point for people who trade in cryptocurrency. Although there is a lot of competition in cryptocurrency exchanges, the types of venues tend to be complex, require high fees, don’t have a very good selection, suffer problems with reliability and sometimes fall prey to security problems such as losing money to hackers.

To address those problems, The Pit was developed by a large team of almost 100 people from numerous parts of the industry, including the New York Stock Exchange, TD Ameritrade Inc., Google LLC, Goldman Sachs, UBS Group AG, Interactive Brokers and Revolut.

The infrastructure for The Pit comes from Equinix LD4, a telecommunications provider in England with a superb history and one of the lowest-latency data centers in the world. This infrastructure and the high reliability that comes with it provides the 40-microsecond transaction time that The Pit promises for new users.

“This week, we’re launching version one, but the best is yet to come,” said Smith. ”Over the next weeks and months we’ll continue to ship the exchange we’ve dreamed of using.”

To attract an audience, The Pit is designed to be as friendly to newbie traders as to experts. That’s why Blockchain designed the user interface to allow quick and easy trading without much friction for people who just want to exchange a few coins as well as an advanced interface with complex trade agreements and triggers.

That’s accomplished by providing a series of different dashboard panels that allow users to approach trading at a level they’re accustomed to, thus not overwhelming neophyte traders or dumbing it down too much for experts.

Also important for the 40 million potential users, Blockchain designed The Pit with liquidity in mind. In the past, many exchanges suffered from a problem where it was easy to get cryptocurrency into the exchange but it was difficult to get money such as USD into or out of the exchange.

To resolve that issue, The Pit is connected directly with Blockchain wallets, making it seamless to move cryptocurrency in and out. The company has also formed a large network with banks across the EU, the U.K. and the U.S. to ensure that users can easily move money into and out of the exchange.

Ideally, the exchange should permit users to trade in whatever volume they want, given some time for dealing with financial regulatory measures. That means users of The Pit should be able to sit down and trade in volumes of $100 to $100,000 without much friction.

The Pit exchange from Blockchain is now available to the general public and a new account can be created at The Pit website.

Image: Blockchain

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