By Ivan Castano
Hybrid crypto exchange Qurrex hopes revenues will reach $100 million by 2021 as professional traders sign up to its “new generation trading terminal,” Chief Operating Officer Slava Baikalov revealed.
He spoke as the Amsterdam-based start-up was set to complete its $35 million ICO by June 30, joining a string of other exchanges that have garnered $695 million so far this year and are poised to eclipse 2017’s gains.
The sale included 55 million tokens priced at 300QRX per 1 ETH and offered a 60 percent airdrop for the sale’s final stage.
“The project is aimed at solving many critical problems of the existing cryptocurrency industry and drive the mass involvement of a new class of professional participants of traditional markets” including FX and classic brokers, trading houses, banks, funds and institutional players to the booming cryptocurrency world, among others, Baikalov said.
‘Thousands of mini-exchanges’ The team “is sure that Qurrex will be among the top-3 cryptocurrency exchanges, and this is only a matter of time, even relatively soon,” the former investment banker added.
To achieve this, Qurrex will pursue a three-in-one strategy merging a centralized platform for professional clients and a decentralized one comprising thousands of mini-exchanges, the first of its kind, Baikalov noted. This will be blended with a “new generation” trading terminal for sophisticated clients, he added.
The latest hybrid exchange will also feature a “wide range of analytical tools and charts as well as social trading,” according to its web site.
To shield investors against frequent exchange heists, Qurrex said it will incorporate secure “cold,” offline-storage facilities and insure customers’ “hot,” online wallets to avert losses.
If all goes well, Qurrex should deliver $100 million in revenues by 2021 and $150 million by 2023, Baikalov predicted.
Unlike top rival Legolas, a team of “specialists who have experience in creating highly loaded and high-performance trading systems for industrial use,” will run Qurrex, Baikalov noted. The bourse will also incorporate the latest C++ and JavaScript programming tools to boost its efficiency.
Prior to co-founding Qurrex, Baikalov spent a decade working as an investment banker focused on corporate finance and M&A. Other Qurrex founder Matthijs Johan has a 20-year investment banking, brokerage and business development background including leading large trader.
3.5 million transactionsWhen ready, Qurrex will offer trading speeds of 3.5 million transactions per second, up from 8,000 and 6,000 transactions per second for top incumbents Bitfinex and Poloniex respectively, it claimed. It will also provide algorithmic and arbitrage services to its key institutional trading customers.
The sky is the limit as to how much Qurrex and the overall crypto-exchange space can grow.
By drawing deep-pocketed professional investors to its fold, the firm and other platforms allowing investors to swap digital coins could swell to match the traditional financial system’s trade assets – worth a whopping $80 trillion, Baikalov said.
Crypto exchanges’ future looks bright despite the current market meltdown.
As the token economy grows, bitcoin-trading bourses could reach $120 billion to $150 billion in daily trading volumes by 2021 -- and $300 billion to $400 billion by 2026, Baikalov predicted.
Currently, trading volume hovers at $15 to $20 billion, according to Coinmarketcap.com
Hackings aside, crypto bourses face tough regulatory and adoption challenges.
“We need to create the
infrastructure to meet institutional clients’ needs, stop being a black box to create openness and transparency and establish an independent and trusted custody institution,” Baikalov mused.
For Qurrex, obtaining an EU operating license and building a high-quality exchange will become its most near-term pressing challenge, he concluded.
