Beyond Ethereum: Getting Started With Cross-Chain Trading

Despite its prominence as the most well-established smart contract platform and decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, Ethereum is gradually seeing an exodus of users to other platforms — largely due to its often gut-wrenchingly high transaction fees and congestion. This is particularly the case among cryptocurrency traders, who are moving away from Ethereum en-masse to platforms like Avalanche and Binance Smart Chain. This is owed to their dramatically lower fees and improved speed over Ethereum, as well as the rapid development of their token ecosystems — and the opportunities this brings. Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) have emerged as the simplest way to gain exposure to these new ecosystems, allowing traders to access the most promising tokens at an early stage without waiting for centralized exchange listings. Here, we take a look at three of the most promising cross-chain ecosystems, and the DEXs that act as their primary entry points. Avalanche: Pangolin In development since mid-2020, Avalanche is one of the most well-known Ethereum competitors and has grown into a thriving ecosystem of powerful DApps and projects. Today, the Avalanche landscape is filled with a wide variety of popular platforms, ranging from DeFi tools to play-to-earn games, NFT marketplaces, and more. Pangolin currently sits at the very center of this rapidly blossoming ecosystem. As a decentralized exchange platform Pangolin provides a permissionles...