ICPSwap is a DeFi hub built and running entirely on the Internet Computer.
What are Decentralized Exchanges
Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs) are boosting the DeFi growth by rivaling centralized exchanges. DEXs are a place where you can go and trade like any other centralized exchange, but there is no intermediary, as you can trade with anyone and you are in control of your coins. The tamper-proof smart contracts execute the orders and transactions, instead of a third party who books your order - like in centralized exchanges.
There are many reasons one goes for DEXs instead of Centralized exchanges
- Decentralized nature - meaning no centralized authority has control over the exchange.
- Anonymity - don’t need KYC to use.
- Lack of security and privacy in centralized exchanges.
- Your Keys, your crypto - no third party will interfere between you and the exchanges.
- Superior yield and returns / better rewards compared to centralized exchanges.
- Governed by the community - Crypto economic game - Better governance for better gains
Current Scenario of existing DEX
Existing DEXs are not as powerful as centralized ones. Two of the prominent exchanges - Pancake swap ( running on the Binance Smart Chain) and Uniswap (Ethereum-based) have issues when it comes to scalability, speed, and power required to rival centralized exchanges. A few drawbacks are:
- High fees - Because Uniswap charges users for interacting with the network and transaction fees depend on ETH gas fees.
- Slow and Less scalable.
- Poor user experience and transactions can take more than 10 minutes.
- Hosted on centralized clouds and are not truly decentralized to the core.
- Need third-party wallets to interact with the exchange or network.
- Less powerful compared to centralized exchanges in terms of speed.
- No KYC - meaning no way to recover the assets if the user loses the private keys.
Why Building on The Internet Computer is More Beneficial for ICPSwap
There are multiple reasons for building on the Internet Computer:
- The Internet Computer (IC) can scale without bounds, has web speed, and is inexpensive compared to other chains.
- With the IC, a DEX can directly run on-chain without needing to be hosted outside of IC. Everything from Backend to front-end is coded on the IC.
- The user doesn’t have to pay fees to interact with the dapp (except for transaction fees). With the reverse gas model, the canisters have to be charged with cycles by the developers.
- The user doesn’t need to use a third-party wallet like Metamask or pay for fees whenever it's needed to interact with the DEX.
- Security and richer user experience.
- Users can store their tokens in the wallet provided by ICPSwap itself, therefore there is no need to interact with Metamask or any third party other than the IC native wallets. Additionally, you can send your ICP token from an exchange like Binance to the ICPSwap wallet address and trade in the DEX.
ICPSwap
ICPSwap aims to be the DeFi hub of the ICP ecosystem through its DeX ICPSwap, which can be used to swap, mint, and even store the tokens of the Internet Computer ecosystem. The team has released a Demo version and the UI looks smooth and simple to use.
ICPSwap aims to be a leading financial hub offering multiple services to users and developers building on the ecosystem. Since ICP swap is built on Internet Computer, it unleashes the potential of DEX and DeFi. The canister smart contracts are so powerful, interoperable, and inexpensive. ICPSwap can bring out DeFi features and user experience, which were not possible with previous DEXs.
Smart Contract Canisters are essentially tiny powerhouses and many such powerhouses come together to create a Mega powerhouse. The dapp is the mega powerhouse.
Features Available on ICPSwap
ICPSwap has DeFI features like any other DEX.
Some of the user features
- Swap tokens
- Add liquidity with MOR (Market-making with Optional Ranges) and Create pools
- Make the limit order
- Mining and farming
- Learn about the project on the token list
- Vote on community governance
- Discuss the Projects in Chat and Create communities
- Advertising
- Receive Candy airdrop
ICPSwap is running on ICP, which means that previously thought concepts that were limited by scalability and web speed can be developed. ICPSwap is bringing a new mechanism for Liquidity Pools and it boasts about its new innovative NFT function under development. The future roadmap consists of DAO Governance, Liquidity mining, testing, and exploring cross-chain provision of financial and market services. The cross-chain dream can come true when ICP-ETH integration begins which is still 4 to 6 months away.
The user experience of ICPSwap will be like no other existing decentralized exchange (DEX), the goal is to take it to a level where people don’t notice they are interacting with a decentralized application. We are aiming to build a mass-market DEX with a great user experience, that even your grandma can use.
Lower Static Fees, Providing a Superior User Experience Compared to Traditional DEXs
The fees on ICPSwap will be less expensive compared to the traditional DEXs out there. The Internet Computer has a reverse gas model where smart contract canisters (dapps) need cycles to function, which can be obtained by converting ICP to cycles. Anyone can charge the canister by sending cycles to it. The user doesn’t have to pay fees for interacting with the network all the time. This enables developers to host their services for example - ICPSwap to be hosted entirely on the Internet Computer i.e. on-chain. The cycles price is tethered to SDR so it always remains the same amount of cycles to perform computation. So the ICPSwap can be entirely hosted on IC and can scale like any other centralized exchange.
About ICS - The Governance and Utility Token of ICPSwap
A total of 1 billion ICPSwap tokens - ICS will be issued. This is the governance token as well as the utility token, which can be used to pay fees like UNISWAP or PANCAKE SWAP. The team has already conducted an airdrop to the community and has announced the results. The token is deflationary in nature, “the more the token is used in the ecosystem, the more tokens are burned”. There is a 0.3% transaction fee, which will be used to repurchase the ICS token and burn it. The liquidity pool fees however are distributed to the liquidity providers.
ICS token holders, just like ICP holders can initiate proposals and participate in governance using ICS. ICS is also used to pay for features such as token minting, community creation, advertising push, mining pools, etc. Furthermore, the DAOs will boost the growth by bringing in new users and capital.
ICPSwap team has released the demo and is proceeding according to their roadmap.
Getting Started with the Demo
ICPSwap provides a smooth user interface. This snapshot is the demo version of ICPSwap.
To use the ICPSwap, you will have to create an ICPSwap wallet that will provide you with your ICS address and ICP address.
With just a username and password, you can create a wallet. You will be provided with a seed phrase that can be used to import the wallet. The option to log in with an internet identity is not available yet. To log in again, the user just has to enter a password to unlock the wallet.
The user interface looks amazing with many sections such as the dashboard, wallet, token minting, chats, voting, liquidity, swap, and token list.
The dashboard contains a wallet balance and price chart. We can hope for better UI in the future as it can be coded into canisters to get price updates, a news feed, etc.
ICPSwap Vs Other DeX in BSC and Ethereum
Since ICPSwap is hosted on the internet computer, you don’t need a third-party app like Metamask to interact with the network. Better yet, the user doesn’t have to pay gas fees just for interacting with ICPSwap. Thanks to the IC, the devs can build the best user interface and provide a cheaper and superior user experience. Being an open internet service, many new features and services can be added or removed through proposals made by anyone via the governance system. ICPSwap is also exploring options to perform cross-chain swaps and create an NFT marketplace in the DEX itself.
ICPSwap will provide a richer and better DEX experience that is currently not possible with DEXs from other blockchain ecosystems.
User Experience and Recommendations
The app feels really smooth. I would like it to be more viewer-friendly and with charts and analytics. Themes would be a good way to improve the UX. The takeaway here is that I didn’t have to download a Metamask wallet to interact with the exchange nor did I have to pay insanely high fees like in other DEXs.
Creating an account was very easy. I had to just back up the seed phrase and password. At the moment there isn't a way to connect to II and it is a demo version, But the beta is set to launch soon.
Minting tokens was easy with just 3 steps. The Demo had allowed minting of over 50 tokens, which caused a surge in canister creation when the demo went live on the 20th of July.
This is because every token created gets its own canister. Whereas ERC20 tokens are stored on the chain and require ETH gas to transfer/interact with tokens. Whereas in ICP, transaction costs can be capped to particular tokens and the token owner or users have to add the cycles to the canister, therefore ensuring cheap and stable transaction fees.
Recommendations From a User Perspective
More incentives to the community must be provided to grow the network. Giveaways, NFTs, pooling incentives should be developed. Active discussions on social media platforms running on the Internet Computer or other platforms will be beneficial for better governance. Guides and tutorials must be created so everyone can easily access DeFi services.
Since canisters are interoperable, ICPSwap can make use of OpenChat or DSCVR to provide user experience and display metrics. OpenChat also wants to bring one canister per chat room and per person, therefore these canisters can interoperate with ICPSwap canisters to provide a better chat experience.
The user interface is already awesome, with little work it will be amazing. Since all of this happens on-chain, there is a 2 to 3 seconds delay in processing. I guess it can be improved. I am looking forward to using and trading on ICPSwap.
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