Jack Dorsey, a prominent advocate for Bitcoin, is planning to build an open platform to create a decentralized exchange for Bitcoin through his newly established company TBD, according to a tweet he made on Friday. Decentralized exchanges are a type of cryptocurrency exchange that allows peer-to-peer transactions without the need for an intermediary. The Twitter founder retweeted an original post by TBD project manager Mike Brock, who provided some insights into the direction the unit is heading. Brock stated in an eight-part thread on Twitter: "There has been a lot of speculation about what TBD is and what it is not. We finally wanted to share our direction, and we have some questions."
Brock added that his team believes Bitcoin will be the native currency of the internet. However, the problem, as he pointed out, is that trading Bitcoin often involves exchanging securities through a centralized exchange and under the oversight of other parties, referring to the CashApp system, a mobile payment service developed by Square and Coinbase, which is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US. He said, "While there are many projects aimed at making the internet more decentralized, our focus is solely on establishing a sound global monetary system for everyone."
The TBD team aims to eliminate many of the known financial intermediaries in exchanges, such as brokers and custodians, targeting the creation of what are known as on- and off-ramps, which are processes for converting cash and asset classes to Bitcoin and vice versa. He wrote: "Think of it as a decentralized exchange for fiat currencies, with Bitcoin as the native currency." The TBD project was launched last July, and it is a unit of Square, the payment company founded by Dorsey, where he serves as CEO.
Brock stated: "As we said, this platform will be developed entirely on public, open-source protocols, and any wallet will be able to use it. There is no foundation or governance model controlled by TBD." He hinted at cost and scalability as some of the gaps TBD currently sees, in addition to the ability to create an exchange infrastructure that allows transactions between other digital assets.
