Bitfinex Launches Decentralized Exchange EOSfinex in Beta

Paolo Ardoino, Bitfinex's CTO, picked EOSIO for the job. The blockchain offers "a strong advantage for on-chain trading," he said, with speed and throughput suited to high-volume transactions. "This is an important development for both Bitfinex and EOS," Ardoino said. "EOSfinex will be a highly-scalable, performance-driven platform, focused on transparency and decentralization." The system would make "trustless on-chain exchange and high-performance" standard practice, he explained, with "easy scalability and flexibility" enabling this vision while cementing these principles as "vital for the blockchain industry as a whole."

EOSIO is an open-source blockchain protocol for enterprise applications. Block.one developed it and claims it processes millions of transactions per second with no transaction fees. The company raised $4 billion during a year-long token sale to fund development. The EOS token went live as an ERC20 on Ethereum before Block.one launched EOS on its own mainnet on June 14.

The announcement comes amid departures at Block.one. Four early employees quit on Tuesday to start a confidential blockchain project. David Moss, Thomas Cox, Brian Abramson and Corey J. Lederer—Block.one's second, third, fourth and fifth hires—all held senior technical posts. Moss served as senior vice president of technology operations, Cox as vice president of product, Abramson as vice president of infrastructure, and Lederer as senior director of technology products.

Bitfinex carries its own cloud. The exchange, operated by iFinex (a Hong Kong company registered in the British Virgin Islands), has sat at the center of repeated cryptocurrency controversies. Bitfinex and Tether share common shareholders and management; Tether issues tokens it claims maintain a one-to-one peg to the dollar. Critics question whether Tether actually backs its currency, suspecting the company creates value without reserves. Research published earlier this year showed that Bitfinex price manipulation accounted for roughly half of Bitcoin's price surge during the final months of 2017.