John McAfee Makes a Case for Decentralized Cryptocurrency Exchanges

John McAfee, the billionaire antivirus developer, has always been a huge fan of crypto. Whether it is predicting that Bitcoin will reach some significant milestone soon or running on a “pro-crypto” presidential campaign, he’s always made his admiration of the space pretty clear. 

The vocal crypto entrepreneur is doing his bit to venture into the business of cryptocurrencies. Late last week, the infamous Internet pioneer announced on Twitter that he would be launching a beta for the McAfee Decentralized Exchange (DEX), an exchange that runs on the Ethereum blockchain, on October 7. 

The McAfee Distributed Dex beta version is coming 10/7. Play with it. It takes time for enough users to join to make it real, but if you play, and be patient, you will see it's the door that frees us from Government's cornerstone of control: Fiat currencies. It can't be shut down pic.twitter.com/W3XCExspQT

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) October 5, 2019

Freedom, now!

In the tweet, McAfee is seen making some rather grandiose claims about the exchange, including the fact that those who “Play and be patient” will be able to use the exchange to free themselves from fiat currencies; concepts which he described as the cornerstone of government control. 

Elaborating more on the concept of freedom and how cryptocurrencies play a significant role in ensuring it, McAfee went on to point out that centralized exchanges remain a weak point for the crypto space. To buttress his point, he used the example of China closing access to cryptocurrency exchanges back in September 2017. 

Touting the decentralized model as the key, he pointed out that distributed exchanges can’t be shut down. 

“Decentralized meaning that nobody controls it, distributed meaning that it is everywhere and therefore impossible to stop. We’ve had privacy coins, that’s the other part of this equation, because privacy coins with decentralized, distributed exchange is the goose that lays the golden egg for us. We don’t use it though,” he added. 

His belief is shared in the details of the exchange and its operations. The billionaire revealed that the exchange wouldn’t be blocking anyone based on their locations, and prospective users won’t need to go through any Know-Your-Customer security procedures to gain access to the service. 

https://twitter.com/saidipth/status/1180501917341863938

The exchange will also reportedly be open-sourced, and it will charge a flat 0.25 percent premium for takers. There also won’t be any maker fees, and while the beta service will be accepting ETH-based tokens, for now, McAfee has confirmed that others will be added in the near future. 

Erc20 and Ether based for the beta. More coming soon.

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) October 5, 2019

Is decentralization what we need now?

McAfee’s entire play seems to be founded on some solid principles. The crypto space has been branded as what will finally get people out from under the “tyranny” of the government and other establishments, but so far, exchanges, in particular, have remained constrained by government influences.

In a bid to remain legitimate and stay in the good books of the law, exchanges have chosen to “play by the rules,” and have complied with the dictates of several organizations. 

Theoretically, decentralized exchanges could solve all of this. However, considering how far the crypto space has come, migrating to decentralized exchanges might not be the best choice. Cryptocurrency holders and investors want security and accountability from their asset custodians, and an exchange that is based on thumbing its nose at authorities might not inspire much confidence among them.

Case and point; decentralized exchanges aren’t recording the same numbers as their centralized counterparts. Even McAfee admits to that, as he encourages prospective users to not “expect any miracles.”

Regardless, it will be interesting to see whether investors will be willing to forgo their need for safety in exchange for the freedom that cryptocurrencies were intended to bring.