Why We Should Make Getting on a Large Centralized Exchange A Priority

General
#1

I know that the team strongly believes that decentralized, trustless systems are the way of the future. And I believe that too. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t care as much as I do about this project succeeding either. Being able to trade any Ethereum based asset for another without relying on a third-party is really cool, and just a small glimpse of all the potential that crypto has to offer.

But the reality of the present moment is that being excluded from the biggest CEXs like Binance, Coinbase, Huobi and Kraken is a significant barrier to growth and adoption, and a major reason why this project, which is undoubtedly one of the most important in the entire industry, is so undervalued. Here are some of the major reasons:

  • Fees: As I write this, the gas fee for making a single trade on Uniswap is according to MetaMask 0.018233 ETH for a “slow” transaction and 0.041785 ETH for an “average” transaction, which works out to approximately $23 or $53 respectively, plus a 0.30% liquidity provider fee. By contrast, Binance charges a maximum 0.1% fee per trade. This is a significant amount of money for most people. Many people like to buy a small but steady amount of crypto each payday, or enter/exit a position over the course of a week or a month, but on a DEX that would currently be prohibitively expensive. Such high fees also significantly reduce trading volume and liquidity for obvious reasons. These high fees are a major barrier to entry for people like me.
  • Fiat/Bitcoin Gateways: The ability to directly transform fiat into PNK, or at least complete the whole exchange on a single platform without additional exchange and gas fees, is a major boon. This process remains significantly easier on a CEX.
  • Mantle of Legitimacy: This may seem silly considering the project has already received endorsements from people at the top of their industries like Vitalik and Colin Rule, but a lot of people are simply not even going to bother to investigate a cryptocurrency that isn’t even part of the default list on Uniswap. A listing on a prominent exchange is obviously not a guarantee of legitimacy, but it is at least a first hurdle that weeds out most of the scams and dead projects that crypto is flooded with. I have no numbers, but from informal conversations I estimate people who use listings as a heuristic still make up the vast majority of the crypto community.
  • Usability: A prominent CEX almost certainly has a clearer interface with more easily visible stats than Uniswap. On a CEX it is easy to place a market order, a buy/sell limit order, or a stop-loss, to inspect the order book, and to cancel unfilled orders. Orders are executed at a quicker speed and a higher volume. Placing big orders on Uniswap and dealing with terms such as “estimated slippage” is a little scary if you haven’t done your reading.

The sum of all these points is that being listed on a prominent CEX would allow Kleros to grow at a much faster rate. The juror incentive program is a good idea, but being listed could very well bring in many times more new jurors over time. A listing would attract a great deal of new attention, make it easier to on-board curious people, and help existing community members add to their stack without losing half their money in gas.

DEXs are the future. But CEXs are the present. The biggest CEX is Binance, with a daily volume of $17,327,887,421. The biggest DEX is Uniswap, with a daily volume of $793,623,815 —Binance is 21x the size. In addition, there are five other CEXs with more daily volume than Uniswap. The combined daily volume of the top ten DEXs is $31,096,462,228. For the top ten DEXs, daily volume is only $1,933,756,028. The CEX remains most people’s introduction to crypto and their primary buying platform. This is a tremendous slice of the market to ignore.

I have an enormous respect for the team and the project. Kleros is going to transform the way people interact with crypto and help bring smart contracts into the real world. As far as I know, the team has expressed that getting a listing on a major CEX is not a priority, but it is my belief that it would lay the essential groundwork for the growth in users and attention that this project so obviously deserves. I believe even paying for a listing would quickly pay for itself in a higher rate of community growth and engagement. Now is a good time to pursue this, as the project starts to release revolutionary new dapps like Proof of Humanity.

I also appreciate that the team is so open to community feedback, and I hope other community members can either corroborate or put to rest some of my concerns. I have created a straw poll here: https://strawpoll.com/prf389gua to help gauge community sentiment as well.

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#2

Completely agree with this opinion. Most people just won’t pay $50 on Uniswap to buy a cryptocurrency. Sure, Ethereum 2.0 will solve this issue but we don’t know how much time it will take and current price action makes current kleros investors lose hope already.

#3

PNK is already listed on the 4th largest exchange: Bitfinex. Despite that, most of the activity goes on Uniswap. Kleros enthusiasts generally prefer DEXes.

There is already a bounty for exchange listing and the team regularly sends listing applications to top exchanges (we don’t care about the low-end exchanges as they are generally just wash-trading venues without real users).
I’m not sure there is much value in getting listed on CEXes but we apply anyways.

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#4

In my personal opinion it’s hard for projects like these without listing on Binance or Coinbase. Most people coming to crypto and trying to invest don’t really want to use Bitfinex(even though it’s 4th largest exchange). I don’t try to be impolite but Kleros team should really try as much as possible to get listing on Binance. And it’s not just my opinion, I think that most members in our community would agree on that.

Edit: I also think that we actually have most activity on Okex(I don’t know the reason why it’s not listed on Coingecko). https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=OKEX%3APNKUSDT

#5

You cannot just “list on Coinbase/Binance”. You send some application form, they review the asset and then decide or not to list you. For example for a Binance there is a cooldown of 6 months before you can reapply. We definitely talk with some exchanges (one for almost 6 months). Sometimes they decide to list (like Bitfinex), sometimes they decide not to.

I think Coingecko removed them as they stopped withdrawals. PNK was thus trading at prices different from the remaining of the market. Now that withdrawals came back, feel free to ask Coingecko to relist this market.

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#6

Thank you for reading my post and for your reply. Bitfinex is a good start, but is unfortunately not an option for me and many others because they cannot serve Americans.

I am relieved to hear that the team is continuously working on this issue. Like many fans of Kleros, I do believe in decentralization as an important goal, but I also can’t afford $20-$50 a transaction, and I think we should make a point of reaching out to people in the broader crypto community who aren’t yet fully committed to decentralization regardless of cost.

In the early stages of Kleros’ growth, it’s important to make dipping your toes in the water as painless as possible.

Kleros is a vitally important project if crypto is ever going to fulfill its promises. Established businesses need decentralized insurance if they’re going to trust smart contracts to execute according to written contracts. Ordinary people who use crypto for escrow need an impartial third party with skin in the game to resolve disputes. Many fully decentralized systems would ideally be built on the principle of “one man, one vote” instead of “one wallet/account, one vote,” but without proof of humanity, that is difficult to achieve. These use cases are going to be ubiquitous in a world that runs on crypto, and Kleros can solve many of the remaining problems that prevent us from getting there.

I am confident that most of the big movers and shakers in crypto can easily recognize the value in that. I know Vitalik and Balaji Srinivasan, among many others, have expressed interest and support for the project. If possible, it would be a good idea to ask well-connected people who are excited about the project to put in a good word with an exchange. Connections are important in any industry. The technology helps get you those connections, but then you still have to actually use them.

I think this is a very important step if future developments are going to make the impact on the public they deserve to make.

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#7

Thank you for your thorough reply Clément. This alleviates a lot of concerns. I hope that PNK gets listed on Coinbase and Binance as I share the sentiment of the original poster.

I would encourage everyone to put PNK on your Coinbase watchlist as it’s rumored that this plays a factor in listing considerations.

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#8

I am of the opinion that growth for the Kleros project will only come from industry adoption, first and formost. The cex issue has obviously become a pressing concern for some but i believe the underlying cause for such concern is due to a lack of community cohesion rather than stagnant economic growth. We need to reframe our focus from how a cex listing might afford some value appreciation and instead begin to think about how to promote and strengthen the communities continued cohesion and autonomy.

A cex listing will not bring any value appreciation in and of itself, and in fact the notion that value is conferred upon some such thing merely in virtue of it’s relation to some centralised entity is in direct opposition to the principles of decentralisation. It should be quite obvious just how problematic cexs are becoming to the whole space simply by observing our current predicament, we cannot in good faith allow ourselves to fall folly to their influence.

If the underlying cause for the current matter at hand be a lack of community cohesion rather than stagnant growth, as i propose, then we need to stop framing the issue as an economic one and start framing it as a social one. The latter, thankfully, does not require the involvement of either coinbase or binance.

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#9

Getting on a CEX could be advantageous, but only if this promotes PNK usage rather than merely speculative trade, although as a byproduct would surely increase the economic security in terms of the total exchange value of staked tokens in the courts.

Partnerships should drive more usecases and increase the number or disputes arbitrated on Kleros. I think this should be the priority. Not to say that CEX listings are not important, but need not be a priority. In light of the current hysteria, I think the push to get listed on a CEX is short sighted.

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