Victoria, Seychelles, Dec. 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Following three years of development by Wall Street veterans, Leverj (https://leverj.io/) recently launched the first high-speed decentralized derivatives exchange, which provides spot and futures trading of cryptocurrencies. Today, DeFi Exchange Leverj.io and liquidity providers are announcing the launch of Futures products (Perpetual Swaps) for Bitcoin and Ethereum against USDt on Leverj, bringing DeFi derivatives to market for the first time. Bitcoin and Ethereum perpetual contracts against stablecoin DAI are already live.
Over the past 12 months, the DeFi ecosystem has grown exponentially, with the growth rate of trading volumes on decentralized exchanges (DEX) far outpacing centralized exchanges (CEX). In September 2020 trading volumes across DEXes grew by 121%. In the same month trading volumes on CEXes shrank, dropping by 51%.
Leverj builds off this trend by introducing a non-custodial, decentralized exchange which offers spot and futures trading, and aims to minimize some of the challenges associated with DeFi today.
“Both retail and institutional traders are tired of the counterparty risk of centralized exchanges,” said Fran Strajnar, CEO of Techemy Capital. “Until recently, this was the only choice. Uniswap showed the world how instant swaps can work in a simple yet non-custodial way. Leverj.io is the first derivatives exchange to crack the self-custody problem. This is a significant piece of the DeFi ‘money lego’ stack.”
Launched by former traders and engineers from J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs, Leverj is designed to perform like a traditional financial exchange while maintaining the critical functions of privacy and security and allowing users to maintain custody of their assets through the entirety of the trade lifecycle.
With the whole DeFi industry demanding faster clearing, lower network fees, and general scalability, Leverj is the first application built on the advanced Gluon.Network protocol, an Ethereum scalability solution engineered specifically for high-frequency decentralized derivatives trading.
Leverj is actively supported by CoinShares, technology firm ConsenSys, stablecoin system Maker, and active investors Techemy Capital, a sister company of Brave New Coin (BNC). BNC is also supporting the Leverj product roadmap by supplying the high-frequency exchange the indices to power its upcoming perpetual swaps. BlockchainLabs.nz are the auditors.
All mentioned companies are investors in L2, the Gluon Network’s native governance token, which will be an important component of the decentralized exchange ecosystem. According to BNC research, in recent months various industry governance tokens have voted on over $5 billion dollars worth of material changes within the blockchain ecosystem including product and feature launches as well as significant M&A activity. Governance tokens are proving their usefulness in the DeFi ecosystem and are expected to continue growing in popularity.
By December 15, Leverj will launch two cash-settled futures products on their decentralized derivatives exchange Leverj.io: ETH and BTC perpetual swap contracts against USDT, and the third product, the BNC DeFi Index being listed against USD Tether in mid January.
BraveNewCoin.com is providing high-speed indices and infrastructure for all futures products.
“In the spirit of decentralization, we are very excited to launch our DeFi index on a truly high-speed decentralized exchange,” said Pierre Ansaldi, Head of Product at Brave New Coin. “Leverj.io is a great venue to launch never before possible products.”
Leading digital asset investment firm CoinShares will be providing liquidity and market making services for L2. Meltem Demirors, CoinShares' Chief Strategy Officer, commented: "CoinShares has been pioneering liquidity solutions for crypto products since 2013. We are looking forward to bringing our capital markets expertise to the DeFi space by providing liquidity for this new on-chain, high-frequency trading venue."
Techemy Capital is actively assisting Leverj’s Go-to-Market Strategy.
“Ethereum-based DeFi is reaching a singularity point with DeFi acting as a liquidity vortex, sucking in all financial and monetary value. Financial instruments are now democratised and permissionless. However, DeFi primitives such as derivatives and money markets can do only so much before hitting the underlying network constraints. This is where Layer-2 solutions like Gluon.Network become invaluable,” Said Donn Krassiyenko, Head of DeFi Products at Techemy.Capital.
Maker is already live providing liquidity to the DAI based trading pairs.
Blockchain Labs has audited the Gluon Network codebase.
“We’re pleased with the professionalism and thorough approach Leverj has brought to building a protocol that can act as a decentralized clearing house for futures, options and swaps as Gluon Network participation and governance accelerates,” saidPaul Salisbury, director of Blockchain Labs, which audited the Gluon smart contracts over the past three years to ensure they are robust and fit for purpose.
Consensys.net being a large $L2 governance token holder since 2017 and is exploring further synergy between its portfolio companies.
The futures contracts on Leverj platform are powered by Brave New Coin’s digital asset data infrastructure, and CoinShares Capital Markets will provide market making and liquidity to the exchange. Initial assets available on the platform will be Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens, as well as tokenized ETF products which are a collaborative effort between Brave New Coin DeFi and Techemy Capital.
Leverj is completely self-custodial by design, meaning that users always control their private keys and funds. Leverj runs on Gluon to deliver sub-second trading with zero gas fees. Originally created for the sole purpose of powering Leverj, industry demand for a fast and reliable Layer 2 solution has prompted the team behind Gluon to allow any DeFi project to utilize its network.
Earlier this year, Leverj partnered with Brave New Coin to ensure a full product pipeline for its exchange that is now coming to life. The companies referenced above are all collaborating to deliver further decentralized products, liquidity applications which benefit from using the Gluon Network.
About Leverj
Launched by Wall Street veterans, Leverj.io is a decentralized cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform created to perform like traditional financial exchanges while maintaining the critical function of instant finality. Leverj is completely self-custodial by design, meaning that no matter what happens to the exchange, users always control their private keys and funds. Leverj uses a protocol called Gluon, a mathematically rigorous solution preventing fraud, compromise, and collusion to provide all the benefits of blockchain without the limitations. Gluon is the first fully operational Ethereum Layer 2 chain, giving LEVERJ the high-transaction throughput to work just as fast as centralized exchanges.
Leverj Telegram | Uniswap Link | Leverj Website | Gluon Website
About CoinShares
The CoinShares Group is a pioneer in digital asset investing and manages over $1.5 billions in assets on behalf of a global investor base, with offices in Jersey, Stockholm, London, and New York. For more information on CoinShares, visit: https://coinshares.com/
About Bravenewcoin
Brave New Coin (https://bravenewcoin.com/) (BNC) is a data and research company focused on the blockchain and cryptographic assets industry. Founded in 2014, BNC provides data, analysis and research to a global network of market participants. Brave New Coin supplies spot-pricing, index solutions, research and news both aggregate and proprietary, via partners such as Amazon Alexa, Dow Jones Factiva, NASDAQ, Refinitv, RapidAPI and dozens more. The company’s experience and expertise make it the leading provider of standard and non-standard institutional grade, highly compliant, data solutions. BNC Pro leverages its experience and data into a user-friendly dashboard solution.
About Consensys
ConsenSys is the leading Ethereum software company. They enable developers, enterprises, and people worldwide to build next-generation applications, launch modern financial infrastructure, and access the decentralized web. Their product suite, composed of Infura, Quorum, Codefi, MetaMask, and Diligence, serves millions of users, supports billions of blockchain-based queries for our clients, and has handled billions of dollars in digital assets. Ethereum is the largest programmable blockchain in the world, leading in business adoption, developer community, and DeFi activity. On this trusted, open source foundation, they are building the digital economy of tomorrow.
About Techemy Capital
https://techemy.capital/ Techemy Capital is a boutique investment management company with unparalleled expertise in global blockchain and digital asset investment. We seek to provide clear, well researched and leading investment opportunities to fund managers and institutional investors. Techemy Capital Limited is an authorised Financial Services Provider to wholesale entities under New Zealand law.