Nash Exchange

Basics

• Launched on August 24, 2019. But "Originally known as the Neon Exchange (NEX), Nash was founded in 2017 by five open-source blockchain developers on three different continents. Since then, we have grown rapidly and secured millions in investments, both from private firms and in our public security token offering."
• Built on top of NEO (18-9-2020).

How decentralized is it?

• The following comes from a post (29-10-2019) by competitor Komodo (which is the creator of AtomicDEX), so should be read sceptically:

"The Nash Exchange is a decentralized exchange project that describes itself as “a fast and user-friendly non-custodial exchange.” The Nash Exchange is yet another hybrid DEX with off-chain order matching and trade settlement through a series of smart contracts. The Nash team says the off-chain order matching engine is “the heart of Nash,” but also notes that “it is not a blockchain” and that the “order matching engine is a distributed system, designed to run initially with five nodes.” There is no information available about becoming a part of this distributed order matching system or how to add a node to the engine. Thus it appears that all 5 order matching nodes are currently run by the Nash team, which means the system doesn’t seem very distributed at all. The Nash website says that the protocol “is constructed with a view to upgrading to a fully decentralized system in the future,” but no details are offered about how and when the order matching engine will become decentralized.

To make trades on Nash Exchange, users must first lock their funds into smart contract. The Nash team states that users are “free to withdraw their funds from our trading smart contracts at any time.” After funds are locked into a smart contract, the off-chain order matching engine relays data between the smart contracts and the relevant blockchain networks. Once on order is matched, users must sign off on the trade again before it is settled. Then the funds are exchanged and automatically transferred back into the user’s wallet.

The Nash Exchange is compatible with more than one protocol, a significant advantage over all of the decentralized exchanges covered thus far (0x, IDEX, Waves, Loopring, Kyber Network). Nash supports Ethereum ecosystem assets and NEO-based assets.

However, Nash is not currently compatible with the Bitcoin protocol, so many major digital currencies-- BTC, LTC, BCH, DASH, ZEC, etc.-- are not supported. This dampens Nash's ability to gain widespread usage throughout the industry. Further, Nash exchange requires KYC and notes that "Nash aims to be maximally compliant." While regulatory compliance is important, forcing users to undergo an intensive registration and KYC process is not indicative of decentralization."

Team, partners, etc.

• Partners (3-2-2019): Flybridge Capital Partners, NGC (NEO Global Capital), KR1 and 5 others.

• From Binance Research (20-6-2019):

"Elrond and Nash aim to explore the potential integration of Elrond blockchain platform ERD into the NASH payment platform, allowing their users and clients to trade and acquire ERD tokens across different platforms."