Exchange

A marketplace created for traders and investors to buy and sell.

An exchange is simply a marketplace where traders of financial assets can buy and sell these assets, and invest capital. Unlike markets in the real world, exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange for trading are very organized and underlain by strict rules of trader-to-trader and trader-to-market engagements. Even though traditional exchanges for trading stocks and securities, for example, have fixed physical locations, there is an increasing trend for online marketplaces.

In the world of cryptos, exchanges are typically online. The databases function as trading environments with intermediaries to make trading activities more organized and efficient. However, crypto exchanges can be categorized as centralized exchanges (CEX) or decentralized exchanges (DEX). Examples of popular exchanges include Binance, Kraken, KuCoin, Bisq, and Kyrrex.