The latest crypto bull market is in full swing, spurred on by growth in institutional involvement and endorsements from tech pioneers like Elon Musk, Michael Saylor, and Jack Dorsey. With renewed interest comes renewed demand, putting exchange infrastructure to the test during periods of increased volatility across this fragmented marketplace. 

Each bull run brings in higher magnitudes of participation than the last. If this is the final crypto Gartner cycle, which Three Arrows Capital CIO Su Zhu thinks it is, it may well extend several years and reach a mainstream of over one billion users as we climb the steepest phase of s-curve adoption with gentler drawdowns.

Whether or not that’s the case, the next wave of users is arriving fast. With traditional market censorship on the rise and crypto exchange capacity starting to crack under the strain, the time for crypto trading aggregators is now.

Centralized cryptocurrency exchange issues

The recent frenzy surrounding the latest breaches of crypto all-time highs has left some centralized exchanges like Binance struggling to meet demand, leading to a series of service interruptions to the frustration of users new and old. It’s not just a recent issue either, with certain exchanges regularly encountering load issues during periods of high demand, begging the question of how prepared they are, and why capacity buffers aren’t higher?

Some Coinbase customers have also witnessed freezing of funds on the platform, leaving them unable to take advantage of the price moves. Users affected were told to re-upload identity documents, after which their accounts were held “under review,” without access to their money, an issue which Coinbase blamed on regulatory requirements and a surge in users causing unacceptable customer service waiting times.

Growing participation has become an issue for Kraken also, with the platform recently suspending new user registrations due to extremely high demand and persistent technical difficulties. 

Creeping traditional market censorship

Unscrupulous establishment traders always win. Or so they would like to think anyway, leveraging influence over companies, regulators, and media connections at the expense of retail traders. The market should be a level playing field, with fair and open access to all participants. Instead, the system is rigged. While this form of manipulation is allowed, retail is largely excluded from the huge potential of a market deemed too risky or unsuitable for such participants. 

The recent case of GameStop shares, the Robinhood trading app, and the r/WallStreetBets subreddit community highlights how the tables can be turned, sending some traditional hedge funds into crisis and facing genuine existential risk at one point. While such hedge funds get bailouts, retail traders get censored, demonized in the mainstream media, access to particular stocks or crypto restricted, trading platforms frozen, social media accounts closed, regulator and government clampdowns, and even the forced selling of positions. It doesn’t seem very fair or open, does it?

The rise of liquidity aggregators

With the persistent issues faced by centralized crypto and traditional exchanges, combined with the fragmentation of the market as a whole with thousands of tokens spread across hundreds of venues, each with their own fees and processes, it’s no wonder users are increasingly frustrated.

This frustration has given rise to platforms seeking to spread risk by aggregating liquidity from various venues, without relying on single points of failure, including centralized exchange (CEX), decentralized exchange (DEX), and hybrid aggregator solutions.

CEX aggregators can provide greater convenience, multi-chain accessibility, and negate downtime by pooling centralized exchange liquidity without requiring multiple accounts. However, CEX aggregators lack the interoperability potential of defi and leave users vulnerable to custodial hacking and counterparty risks. 

DEX aggregators leverage interoperability to help alleviate the liquidity problems in defi while continuing to avoid intermediaries and KYC. However, chain accessibility is limited as platforms are predominantly ERC20-based, and they struggle to compete on trading volumes and slippage compared to their centralized counterparts. 

Given these trade-offs, a truly hybrid liquidity aggregator would deliver the most valuable solution to users to bridge the gap between the centralized and decentralized worlds.

An all-in-one solution

Most aggregators focus on just part of the problem at the expense of a full range of hybrid features that would provide a more comprehensive solution. In contrast, Orion Protocol offers the first and only hybrid liquidity aggregator on the market, delivering a chain-agnostic fully decentralized platform known as Orion Terminal.

Unlike other solutions, Orion Protocol provides complete hybrid liquidity aggregation across any CEX, DEX, or AMM, with 16 built-in revenue streams to ensure sustainability. It uses a unique governance mechanism called Delegated Proof of Broker, based around the protocol’s native token, ORN. Brokers have pre-verified exchange accounts and run the Orion software to automatically execute trades on behalf of users. ORN holders can also stake tokens to share in broker rewards and gain discounts on Orion Terminal fees.

Therefore, Orion Protocol can pool high levels of liquidity from centralized exchanges, accessing a full range of token pairs, negating registration and load issues through brokers, and delivering accessible, non-custodial, and censorship-resistant trading, without the need for any accounts, KYC processes, or reliance on single points of failure. Users can simply connect and trade directly from their wallet on a platform that is live today, delivering a full hybrid liquidity aggregation solution to the benefit of traders, projects, and exchanges alike.