Cryptocurrency exchanges enable users to trade across multiple value networks powered by heterogeneous blockchains.
As the number of cryptocurrencies grows, cryptocurrency exchanges become the marketplaces for listing and trading cryptocurrencies. In the current context, users mainly buy cryptocurrencies as a store of value, in anticipation of a future value increase. As exchanges list multiple cryptocurrencies in one place, supply information about them, enable comparisons, and set bid/ask prices according to demand, they help separate the valuable cryptocurrencies from the useless ones. Investors become increasingly discriminate in their choices of cryptocurrencies as a store of value or as a utility token.
As technological and regulatory barriers to the Internet of value will be lifted, cryptocurrencies and decentralized value networks will gain mainstream acceptance. To trade on these different networks, users will need to buy multiple digital currencies and to exchange them as their needs evolve.
Blockchain.io will list a careful selection of cryptocurrencies: Proof-of-Work (POW) coins such as Bitcoin, Ether or Litecoin, Proof-of-Stake (POS) coins like Qtum or Stratis, Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) coins, and other cryptographic protocols yet to be designed and minted.