What is the BitShares DEX?

Before we start to look on how to add funds to our BitShares wallet, lets quickly go through what the BitShares DEX is.

BitShares is a Decentralized EXchange, hence the name DEX. The ledger of the DEX is a public ledger, which means that the ledger on how much any user owns is not hidden compared to private property as centralized exchanges have. BitShares utilizes the power of blockchain technology to record events of trades, sales, and buys, among other things.

The primary currency on the BitShares DEX is BTS, but anything can be traded on the exchange as long as there is a demand for it.

There are two main ways of holding assets on the market

You can keep assets in BTS, which is like any other cryptocurrency and these are your coins.

The other way is that you hold assets in other cryptocurrencies. These are either backed the network in a representative value of BTS, like bitUSD/bitEUR/bitBTC or backed by an exchange operating on the network, like open.BTC/rudex.BTC.

Join BitShares DEX

Transferring funds inside the BitShares Wallet

There are several ways of transferring funds to the BitShares wallet, some methods are accessible on the network itself, and some methods are services online provided by others that can send to your BitShares wallet.

Let's start to look at what we have on the BitShares network itself.

1. Select Deposit & Withdraw

2. Select Service

3. Select "Gateway", "Deposit" or "Withdrawal" and your desired currency

It's important to remember that you are required to follow the EXACT instructions on how to send your coins when transferring. Make sure to follow the instructions on to what username/address to send to as well as the memo note to include if any. Failure to do so may result in losing your coins or a considerable delay in deposits due to the requirements of helpdesk support.

Gateways

RuDEX is a Russian exchange, which operates their own currency Gateway.

RuDEX is a new exchange operating on the BitShares DEX and just recently opened up their Currency Gateway. Their business model for their gateway is to work under a 0% network fee service. Their gateway is financed thanks to their witness services that they run on various networks.

Currently, support assets are: PPY, GBG, GOLOS, MUSE, SBD, STEEM and all assets is backed by their wallets as 1:1 in RUDEX.xxx tokens.

OpenLedger.io is another exchange service running on the BitShares DEX, and has been around for a much longer time. Today they do more than just operate a currency gateway. OpenLedger operate the OPEN.xxx assets, which is a 1:1 asset backed by them.

OpenLedger handles a wide variation of currencies. If one of their support currencies goes down, they should not be available on the list. The following coins are active at the moment and will return you a representative OPEN.xxx token from them.

AGRS, AMP, BTC, DASH, DGD, DOGE, EOS, ETH, EURT, EXCL, GAME, GBG, GOLOS, GRC, INCNT, LTC, MAID, MKR, MUSE, NXC, OMG, OMNI, PPC, PPY, STEEM, SBD, USDT, WAVES

BlockTrades is a direct exchange service for several currencies and operates their facilities online at blocktrades.us. Their services are available directly inside the BitShares wallet and enable you quickly see different trading pairs and deposit addresses.

Depositing through BlockTrades will give you one of their supported currencies directly, which are bitCNY, bitEUR, bitUSD, BTS, and OPEN.DASH.

Supported deposits are BTC, DASH, DOGE, ETH, LTC, SBD, STEEM and USDT.

Another service they provide is "Internal Conversion", a kind of internal trading. With this service you can trade any of their supported trading pairs directly with BlockTrades, essentially bypassing the market. Depending on your choice of input currency you will have several output currencies.

Transferring funds from outside the BitShares Wallet

You can also use several system online that supports BTS Cryptocurrency, or any other supported on the platform for deposits. For example, you can use a Direct Exchange system to move STEEM to BTC by depositing to the OPEN.STEEM token trough it.

Direct Exchange services

By using a direct exchange service you can leave the trading of the currency to a third party. You usually tell how much you wish to deposit and you can see how much you will receive and to where you should send the funds.

Changelly, ShapeShift.io and previously mentioned BlockTrades are a few of these.

These services support various deposit and withdrawal currencies, and can change depending on wallet status and network issues.

Centralized Exchanges

Another way to transfer funds to the BitShares wallet is to go trough a centralized exchange. Some of these are Poloniex, LiveCoin.net, BTC38 (Chinese), BTER (Chinese), Gate.io.

It is advised to use caution while trading on centralized exchanges since they can at any time stop supporting a currency. Bittrex has announced that BTS will be delisted from October 13th, but a definite date is still to be set since the coin is still listed and tradable.

Ever Expanding Market

The BitShares DEX is an ever expanding market, which means that things change all the time, but hopefully you now have some ideas on where to start and how to transfer funds to it.

Look out for more content about BitShares

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