...

We Are Building an Exchange, a Different One

February 10, 2025
We Are Building an Exchange, a Different One

Exchange Maze

Listing Pactus on exchanges, especially top-rated ones, has been one of the most frequent requests from the Pactus community. We’ve received numerous suggestions and requests to list Pactus. Although it wasn’t our top priority initially, we began reaching out to well-known and highly ranked exchanges to explore listing opportunities. However, we were unprepared for the complexities of this “wonderland.” Let’s take a closer look at the many pitfalls we encountered.

Listing Agents

The first hurdle is dealing with so-called “listing agents.” Before you can list on an exchange, you must negotiate with these intermediaries. To get listed, you’re required to pay a “listing fee,” which can range from 10,000 USDT to 200,000 USDT depending on the exchange. Without paying this fee, listing is impossible. These exchanges often highlight their high daily trading volumes as a key selling point to attract both users and blockchain projects. Some exchanges offer more reasonable fees, with part of the payment covering the integration process.

Integration Headache

Once the initial payment is made, the integration process begins and this is where the next headache starts. Many exchanges lack knowledgeable development teams. The bosses there think a car can be sold without an engine, all they care about is marketing. This leads to numerous issues during integration, often resulting in a buggy and flawed system. If you’ve heard of exchanges being hacked, one of the main reasons is the chaos within their development teams. Integration can take over a month, and once completed, the final payment is made, and your blockchain is listed. But this is just the beginning of another challenge: market making.

Market Making and Wash Trading

After listing, the first shocking realization is the lack of users. Where is everyone? Where are those millions in trading volume? This is where market makers come into play. A market maker is essentially a bot that engages in “wash trading”, a form of fake trading designed to inflate an exchange’s daily trading volume. You’re required to pay substantial monthly fees to these market makers. If you refuse, you risk being delisted. We learned this lesson when we were delisted from P2B immediately after listing for refusing to pay. It was a valuable lesson.

Top Exchanges

Back to square one, you might consider listing on higher-rated exchanges. However, the costs are too high. For example, listing on MEXC requires 100,000 USDT, plus an additional 30,000 USDT for market making. Fail to pay, and you’ll get delisted. Some exchanges even demand up to 200,000 USDT. The financial burden is immense.

Red Exchanges

There’s also the issue of “red exchanges”, lesser-known platforms with surprisingly active communities. Listing on these exchanges is often quick and easy. For instance, the Pactus community listed Pactus on Xeggex in less than a week. More than 500 projects were listed there. The fees are lower, and the interface is simple, but the risks are significantly higher.

We Build an Exchange

This is the reality of the exchange landscape. We faced a tough choice: list Pactus on risky exchanges or dedicate substantial funds to exchanges that may or may not have genuine users, despite their marketing claims. However, we’ve made a bold decision to take a different path: We Build an Exchange, a Different One.

Instead of dedicating a significant amount of money to get listed on exchanges, we will create a fully open and transparent exchange that allows users to trade Pactus and enables anyone to join. It will be different from other exchanges on the market because:

  • Open Source

    Every component of the platform, including the backend, frontend, key management, and more, will be completely open source. Nothing will be proprietary or closed.

  • Simple

    Pure and simple. We will make the interface as intuitive as possible, designed for users of all experience levels.

  • Only Humans

    We don’t provide any Trading APIs. We want to build an exchange for humans, not bots. No entry for bots, and no automated trading. We don’t value trading volume; we value our users.

  • Open Listing API

    Listings will be open and external. Any blockchain can be listed by providing safe and reliable RPC nodes, a secure key generation algorithm, and the ability to sign and broadcast deposit and withdrawal transactions. All listing information will be fully open source and auditable by the community. No fees will be involved.

  • Fully Auditable Assets

    All deposit and withdrawal wallets for all assets will be open, public, and available for users to monitor and trace.

  • Open Trade

    All trades will be public, including seller and buyer information. The trades history will remain public for one month to prevent misconduct. Users will be rated based on their activity.

  • Non-Custodial Wallet

    Users can generate a fully non-custodial wallet, meaning they own their private keys. At the same time, we provide a simple and secure web interface for managing their assets. The wallet can also be used offline to enhance security.

  • Social Networking

    Each user will have their own social networking page, allowing them to follow other traders, share news, and trade updates.

A Final Word to the Pactus Community

Pactus remains our top priority, and we’re committed to making it one of the best. We plan to dedicate a separate development team to ensure progress continues. Time is of the essence, and we’re ready to take action.

Together, we can create a better ecosystem for the Pactus community. Let’s make it happen together!