Litecoin’s Charlie Lee Thinks The Binance DEX Does Not Qualify To Be A Decentralized Exchange

In episode 20 of the Magical Crypto Friends, a show hosted by Charlie Lee, Samson Mow, WhalePanda and Riccardo Spagni, the four “magical crypto friends” discuss a range of issues including Ethereum 2.0, the Warren Buffet Charity Lunch secured by Justin Sun, the Bitcoin Cash 51% hack, Freedom dividend, the MCC2020 and LocalBitcoins stopping cash trades on the platform among other things.

The episode is titled “The Dream is Now”, a reference to Joe Lubin, Founder of Consensus, tweet on the release of Ethereum 2.0.

Charlie Lee: “Binance DEX Is Not A Decentralized Exchange”

On the question of decentralized exchanges, popular now as DEX, Mow was critical to the media to use correct terminologies while referring to non-custodial exchanges such as Binance ‘DEX’. The exchange recently banned 21 countries from accessing the platform which raises questions on the decentralization aspect of the exchange. Mow had earlier tweeted on the issue stating that the proper way to ban these countries is to establish a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) then have the DAO decide.

“It just sounds funny when a company bans people from a decentralized exchange, if that’s the headline. … It’s kind of bastardizing the term.” Mow says on the issue of the Binance “DEX” ban.

“It’s not a DEX in the first place, it is more of a non-custodial wallet exchange,” Charlie Lee adds.

LocalBitcoins, A Peer To Peer Exchange, Bans Cash Trades

LocalBitcoins, one of the largest peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchanges also got a mention on the 20^th episode of the Magical Crypto Friends. Since the ban on cash trades on the platform earlier in the year, there has been a couple of critics who have bashed the platform as being “completely useless” and going “against the adoption curve” of crypto.

The founder of Litecoin, Charlie Lee says that the lack of cash trades on the platform is a step back for the exchange and there is no point for LocalBitcoins without them. Furthermore, WhalePanda is one of the many users who have abandoned the platform claiming the platform is following the Shapeshift route. The disengagement with LocalBitcoins started about a year ago when the platform banned access to users in Germany and followed up with adding KYC compliance rules for the users.

Spagni, known as Fluffypony and lead maintenance officer of Monero, spoke on the issue saying,

“They completely banned local bitcoins access in Germany and then they started insisting on KYC/AML compliance for everyone. You know I’m not a big fan of where they’re going”

However, there are still a wide variety of options to trade in select countries across the world such as Kenya where M-Pesa, a mobile payment service, is widely used to make Bitcoin trades.

Is Bitcoin A Better Store Of Value Or Currency?

Finally, the group was asked on their views on “Bitcoin’s primary utility becoming a store of value as opposed to a currency.” Samson Mow believes that unlike gold that is only a store of value, Bitcoin can be everything at once. The low transaction costs, the divisibility and security of transferring Bitcoin all mirror success for the digital asset to be both a store of value and currency. The Blockstream CSO further remarked,

“It’s just what is it best for at the base layer, right now it’s a store of value and wealth transfer. So, you can move hundreds of million dollars for very cheap relatively; right like, 200 million for five dollars or for a dollar. That’s possible with Bitcoin. So it’s still going to be functioning like that at the base”