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The cryptospace is a wild wild west. Given its lack of transparency, clear regulations and volatility, millions of dollars are lost as well as created with each passing block, as one DeFi product is launched and another hacked, NFT/crypto token is rug-pulled and another venture or ICO funded; The vicious cycle continues with no end yet in sight.
Regardless of the havoc this cycle wreaks, It still has its glory days. The most anticipated and celebrated perhaps are the bull-run days when tokens, meme and shit coins alike, either earned from a bounty, received from unsolicited airdrops or even won in a contest such as Publish0x’s, add a number of zeroes to its value and make hunters like me overnight millionaires.
It’s no wonder why the entire crypto market capitalization is worth over $1.3 trillion, hundreds of tokens spring up every day and somehow woo in some liquidity. It doesn’t matter what the token is or what it stands for as we’ve seen a token created as a joke become worth billions of dollars. Whatever undervalued cryptocurrency there is out there or in your wallet better not be overlooked, rather, be on the lookout for whatever market that exists for it, and be on your marks to take advantage.
But, that is easier said than done. The infancy and the discrepancies of the crypto space should not be mistaken for its size. It is vast! Thousands, if not millions of exchange pairs exist and they exist on a myriad of platforms. It becomes wiser to be on the lookout for market aggregators than to look out for individual token markets.
Permit me to introduce to you then, Swapspace.
What is Swapspace?
The name of the platform, Swapspace, may already send some hints about what it’s all about. The idea you get is probably the right one. However, before we carefully define what this platform is, permit me to clarify some possible misconceptions about what kind of swap we mean here, as the crypto space uses the term “swap” to refer to two different processes.
Maybe the introduction gave you a nod in the right direction, but just in case you skipped it to get straight to the point and you think Swapspace refers to a space where you can switch the blockchain on which a token was originally built to another, you’ve thought wrong. I can’t say for now if Swapspace intends to provide that service later in the future but the “swap” service it’s all about now is directly exchanging one cryptocurrency for another - much like what you do on popular exchanges like BINANCE or Coinbase.
So what is Swapspace?
Swapspace is a non-custodial token swapping platform or exchange that aggregates other trusted instant cryptocurrency exchanges and swapping services to offer the best exchange rates to exchangers in a simple and intuitive user interface. It is essentially a space for swapping from multiple swapping service providers. Its mission is to do the work for exchangers so that they only have to use its platform to make a well-informed decision when making a swap between any two cryptocurrencies - in rates, currency types, exchange fees, reliability and rating.
It is important at this point to try to differentiate the process of swapping a token from exchanging it on an exchange, while still recognising their similarities. Exchanging a token on an exchange, be it a Centralised exchange (CEX) or a DEX, is fundamentally swapping it. Both words can be used interchangeably with little to no loss in context. It is basically trading one for the other. However, while an exchange like Binance stands as a third party between a buyer and seller in the process of “exchanging”, it feels more like you’re buying or selling directly to a swap service provider, in a more seemingly automated instant process.
The closest process on an exchange that feels like swapping is the Market order trade, which gets filled instantly regardless of the market spread - although you might be responsible for a long red candle if you make a sale in a high-spread illiquid market.
I’m quite sure that’s not what you want to be responsible for. Or is it? You should know you lose value from something called slippage too if that happens.
In swapping services like Swapspace, there is no bid-ask market spread but they usually have a floating exchange rate that tracks the price of the swapped pair from exchanges. You could choose a fixed rate too, which pegs down the rate at the moment of swap initialization.
In addition to the above, Swapspace has some features which make its design user-centric. Let’s discuss some of it.
Features of Swapspace
Its approach to be a swap of swappers already is an interesting value proposition for anyone who’s after convenience and at the same time value conservation. Yet, at the same time, it adds some other features to, at least, make it be the most preferable amongst others. Below are some features of SwapSpace;
Exchange Aggregation - Anyone knee-deep in the cryptospace understands the common possibility of price differences between pairs on different exchanges, which usually leads to arbitrage opportunities. When there’s an opportunity to capture more value from a trade, why not? With Swapspace’s catalogue of over 14 trusted swap service providers on a single screen, any trader can easily compare rates and take advantage of arbitrage opportunities, or at least avoid trading coins at a relative loss. Some of these exchanges include Binance, ChangeNOW, Changelly, SimpleSwap etcetera.
500+ Cryptocurrencies Support - Given its combination of several swaps, Swapspace is sure to have this advantage over any single swap service. It boasts of over 100,000 exchange pairs across more than 500 cryptocurrencies, to make sure that a trader’s need is always met. It’s a whole new level of flexibility. For the reliability of the pairs, I assume that will be hard to ascertain considering that blockchain network upgrades could affect availability at any point in time.
Support line - Swapspace guarantees that your queries by email or its online chat will get replied to in less than 20 minutes, all days of the week. Yes, weekends inclusive. The availability of a customer rep should keep you calm in times to swap pair unavailability or delays. I’d like to meet Mr Roberts, there are already some good testimonials about him as a customer rep.
Swapspace also supports the fixed and floating rates as well to facilitate more profitable trades. Most interestingly, Swapspace collects no extra fees, in fact, it suggests that fee may be lower as they are constantly in negotiations with partners for that. Too good to be true? Not really, given its aggregation several service providers would attract a high trading volume, it gives Swapspace a vantage point to make that proposal of reduced fees. A win-win-win for everyone.
Into the Swapspace - A Simple How-To Guide
This How-To Guide of Swapspace will be from the eyes of a fresh-new user. I’d describe the experience as I proceed and also include my thoughts about the interface and the different functionality I see. This will be good UX research for Swapspace and would serve as a relatable guide to new users like me.
Methodology for Guide: The review/how-to guide will drop thoughts about the interface and experience as they come to mind and also try to explain its internal workings. The images to describe these thoughts or specify functionality will be included afterwards at reserved spots (created as the review is done). Coloured shapes or arrows will be used to reference icons, buttons or any other functionality described within the text.
This is a desktop review/guide. Swapspace is now opened on my BRAVE browser. It takes a simple, straight-to-point approach like many other swapping services, with the input fields which specifies what crypto you’ll be swapping from (“you send” input field) and which you’ll be swapping to (“you get” input field). This is particularly common with other cryptocurrency exchanges as well. Each field has a dropdown button towards the end of it to select what cryptocurrencies are to be exchanged. It is set to “you send” BTC, “you get” ETH by default.
If this is what you want, but in the reverse, i.e to send ETH and get BTC, you don’t have to go through its ocean of cryptocurrencies to reverse the selection, I found just hitting on its reverse button (shown by the blue arrow) in between input fields pretty helpful. It’s worth noting the “swap tracker” slider to the left of the screen, which requires an exchange ID (I wonder where I’d find that) to “track your swap” as it says on the button. We’ll try to get more understanding of this towards the end of the review.
For this review, we’d initiate a swap of ETH for BUSD-BSC, with a little test amount so we can carefully measure fees and speed. I’ll be sending 0.00283 ETH which was worth $5 at the time of writing. Swapspace tells me, I’ll receive 4.263 BUSD-BSC (~$4.3, BUSD-BSC is a USD pegged stablecoin on Binance Smart Chain) which is really cheap. However, if you try to convert to say, USDC (another USD pegged stablecoin) Swapspace tells you, you’ll receive approximately $2.6. This reveals the impact of blockchain network fees on swapping. Note that this excludes the fees charged by the wallet service provider from which I make the withdrawal.
It is worth noting at this point, that Swapspace has a 20-seconds reload feature on this page to keep the prices/rates updated before swapping is commenced. Hitting the “view offers” button directly below the input field, opens up the partner list of exchanges available for the current pair and amount that has been specified in the input fields above, the swap rate type (fixed or floating rate) as well as their individual reviews. The pair selections and inputted value can still be changed now and the partner list can be sorted by the different rate types - floating or fixed. (see the blue box in the image below)
Select from the list of partners by hitting the exchange button on the partner which is most compatible with your needs. Each partner has their minimum transaction limits as well as limits for the different swap type rates they support. Swapspace notes that some partners require KYC and they respect their decision, so make sure the selected partner fits all the conditions you want. The blue arrow indicates the partner exchange which fits all my input conditions - KYC excluded.
As fate would have it, I hit an error! This gives me an opportunity to try out the 24/7 available customer reps it boasts about, I thought to myself. Just so you know, I’m a little bit pessimistic about the reps replying in less than 20-minutes, also it’s past midnight here in Nigeria, so it’s probably late out there for Swapspace customer reps too and may all have fallen dead asleep.
But what do you know, it took approximately 8 minutes to get a response from the famous Mr Robert and now we are on the issue. Sweet! Forgive me for doubting.
The review was paused for some time until the issue was resolved. Just when I thought, Mr Robert had forgotten all about my issue, I get an email from him before the end of the day pointing out why I had encountered that error. Apparently, I had selected a Binance chain BUSD option but submitted a Binance Smart Chain BUSD address. The beginning of the review has been updated to the correct BUSD-BSC and rates updated as well. Previous images still carry initial values, from this point the values are updated. Apologies.
Alas! It works! I move from the “exchange generation” status to the “awaiting payment” status (see blue arrow in the image above). As expected, Swapspace generates an address for you to send your “you send” crypto to - in my case, ETH. The exchange screen also provides other information such as the rate for the exchange, the amount you get, your inputted destination address and still makes the option available to use TREZOR or another wallet named SimpleHold.
On the smaller details box by the right, there’s a 30 minutes deposit countdown timer (Orange arrow), after which the transaction expires and the lost exchange ID we’ve been searching for since the beginning of this review (Green arrow). Its primary purpose is to help find a particular swap transaction either for tracking its progress or when you need to point to a particular transaction when speaking for a rep. Mr Robert did ask me for it, only I wasn’t at that point yet, a screenshot (as shown above) saved me.
Unfortunately, we won’t complete this swap, but it’s pretty straightforward from here on out. Once the funds are deposited in the generated address, Swapspace automatically triggers a smart contract to send funds to the submitted address, in my case, a BUSD-BSC address. If it takes too long and you need to check what’s holding it back, remember you’ve got your exchange ID. Please remember to copy it.
Now, you wait.
Seen an official Swapspace video tutorial below.
Benefits of Swapspace to the User and the entire Cryptospace
Given all considerations so far, It is obvious the Swapspace is a tool to reckon with. This section focuses on emphasizing these benefits for a user as well as the positive implications for the entire space.
- Swapspace lowers the entry barrier into any aspect of the cryptospace given its wide range of cryptocurrencies. Users interested in DeFi related tokens do not have to go through the brain turning technical protocols to get tokens, they can easily get some via this exchange aggregator.
- Time-Saving and convenient even for cryptocurrency veterans. We get tired of all the complicated exchanges sometimes, we just need some simple straightforward platform to switch a vast range of digital currencies. It’s nice to know today that Swapspace is a viable option.
- Arbitrage opportunities and price balancing is some other contribution Swapspace has to offer the space as a whole. Besides the ease it provides to capture arbitrage opportunities, It limits the price discrepancies across the market, which we can say is a step in the direction of growth of the cryptospace. Maybe it could even help with the Kimchi premium, eventually.
- A one-stop shop for cryptocurrencies is what Swapspace provides. With this aggregator, a time comes when all you’d ever need will be just a wallet of your choice and Swapspace - the essentials. There will be then absolutely no need to open accounts in multiple exchanges unless it is absolutely necessary. You don’t want to know how many exchange accounts I have, I don’t think I know myself. Password managers are life-savers!
- Swapspace helps extends the entire theme of decentralization as it requires no KYC or account registration but yet supports a vast array of cryptocurrencies. Combined with a non-custodial wallet, you remain anonymous all the way through your transaction.
Swapspace is yet to provide fiat channels, which would combine with its vast range of cryptocurrencies, no-KYC and non-custodial approach quite nicely. Its roadmap reveals that it’s currently at the point now in its development process. As good as that sounds, it does raise regulatory concerns for the platform.
Say the team gets to read this, one suggestion I’d make is working with NFT marketplaces to include NFT swaps. That’d be awesome and somewhat unique!
Now, the big question; Can Swapspace be trusted? Based on my personal research, it looks all good, but don't trust me or my personal research, I don't trust me or my personal research. I trust Publish0x's though - those guys haven't missed or delayed any of my payments, not once - and as far as they can tell, it looks legit. Oh, that reminds me, scam adviser thinks it's legit too, here. If you must, know where their HQ is before you transact with them, they've actually provided some information, find them at the end of the about page.
Conclusion
Swapspace creates a universe of tranquillity in the chaotic multiverse of crypto. Firstly it gathers together the best swap service providers and presents them to the user or trader in the simplest of interfaces - literally, yo grandma could use it - as well as sacrifice collecting fees to make swapping with its aggregator just as expensive as the individual swapping services it collates and even proposes to make it less, not to mention its great customer support rep, Mr R. Yes, It is a place for token swaps, but most notably, it is a space built with care for traders first before business.
You make a choice, it picks the best.
