KyberSwap’s decentralized exchange adds new trading tool

Decentralized exchange (DEX) KyberSwap introduced a new trading feature today—limit orders—to bring it more in line with traditional exchanges.

Limit orders allow traders to specify the price at which they want to trade their tokens. That’s  an alternative to putting out a market order, where the tokens are sold at the current, fluctuating market price. Limit orders are an important trading tool because market orders are risky. If someone executes a market order during a flash crash—when the price suddenly plummets—the trade might be made at a very low price.

But, crucially, these limit orders will be non-custodial. This means that KyberSwap’s users will be able to place limit orders to trade funds that remain in their wallets. That’s consistent with the avowed purpose of the DEX—encouraging people to maintain control over their own money.

KyberSwap is built on the Kyber Network, a protocol for building DEXs. More than 60 projects use the underlying technology to exchange tokens from Ethereum wallet MyEtherWallet to crypto wallet Coinbase.

Volume on KyberSwap is on the rise, with a total volume of $125 million over the past five months. It has about 14,000 active users, which is high for DEXs in general.

Currently, many DEX’s are working out how to make an exchange that offers the features and convenience of a centralized exchange—while staying decentralized. Decrypt recently reported on how DEX protocol 0x is working on a decentralized order book while Loopring DEX is using experimental technology to make it more scalable. The race is definitely on.