What does it take to launch a crypto exchange?

Updated January 2024

The rapid growth and popularity of cryptocurrencies has given rise to a world of new markets powered by reimagined trading technology, and now you’re interested in involvement as an exchange operator. Where to begin? In this article, we’ll outline key areas of consideration on the roadmap to launching your own crypto exchange. Let’s begin with assigning company personnel.

A successful crypto company requires a specialized team of experts.

Assembling a competent team with diverse skill sets will impact the effectiveness of your trade platform from the get-go.

Titles to consider:

• Chief Legal Officer to acquire all necessary licenses given the jurisdictions the exchange will operate
• Chief Compliance Officer to meet the regulatory burden of KYC, AML, and to acquire and maintain banking relationships
• Head of Customer Acquisition
• Head of Customer Support
• Multiple Administrators
• Multiple Customer Support personnel

Adhere to evolving regulatory framework in the jurisdictions of operation.

Are you operating in a national market or globally? You’ll need to consider licensing, laws, regulations, guidance and enforcement actions specific to each jurisdiction in which you are operating. Legal expertise can provide guidance on how you might structure your business, taking into consideration these considerations when seeking to offer the best platform for growth.

Things to consider:

• What jurisdictions are you operating in?
• What KYC provider are you planning on using?
• Have you completed your due diligence and are you in a position to sign a contract with the KYC provider?
• Verification levels are attained by completing higher levels of KYC, as you are evaluating KYC vendors consider the levels of verifications you will configure in exchange, e.g., consider daily/monthly deposit, withdrawal and trading limits based on the risk appetite of the exchange operator or jurisdictional limitations.
• Are you familiar with the regulations in each jurisdiction of operation?
• You will need dedicated staff to process incoming clients, so have you budgeted accordingly?

Build relationships with banks and partner with a payment processor.

What banking relationships do you need to establish and how are you working to secure them? Do you need any licenses?

Things to consider:

• If you plan to offer national currency trading pairs you must have a custodian/treasury account to process customers’ deposits and withdrawals of national currencies.
• Open a bank account that your customers can deposit funds into
• Plan procedures around handling deposit and withdrawal tickets
• Are you integrating with a payment provider?
• How will you communicate instructions to your clients?

Architect your exchange using white label exchange software.

Why waste time and resources on development? AlphaPoint’s white label exchange solution will be fully configured to meet your operational needs and adapted to fit your brand.

Things to consider:

• Decide on product features and trade instruments required
• Integration of cold storage capability and general wallet management
• Determine fee structure
• Do you require a mobile presence? Are you interested in optimizing for a mobile website, or native Apple or Android application?
• An ideal launch goes to market swiftly with limited customizations (i.e. writing new code), which is why we recommend working within the AlphaPoint template as a starting point, allowing for your company logo, color scheme, content, and language translation.
• Who is the designated point of contact in your organization to lead this effort?
• Are you looking for a turnkey solution or do you have a vision for what your site should look like?
• Do you have any specific features you expect on your front end?

Generate liquidity as a top priority.

AlphaPoint’s Remarketer software delivers instant liquidity from leading exchanges to your platform at launch, filling order books and generating exchange activity to entice new customer usage. The Remarketer is one way to get orders on the books by putting your capital to work in an automated fashion, this requires you opening and funding accounts at source exchanges.

Things to consider:

• With which exchange you should open an account
• KYC at that exchange
• Fund that account
• Credential handoff to your Remarketer
• Set up strategies on the Remarketer

Strategize for growth and customer retention.

Developing a comprehensive marketing plan prior to going live with your exchange is crucial, including hashing out a scrupulous marketing budget to track spending and gauge ROI.

Things to consider:

• Designing a website as foundation of brand identity
• Paid-per-click campaigns to build social media presence
• Circulate press releases to crypto media outlets
• Paid lead acquisition through a database service
• Blog content for SEO generation
• Establish conference and event schedule for increased brand visibility
• Work with AlphaPoint on cross-promotion opportunities
• Have the necessary personnel in place on your team.

Why AlphaPoint?

AlphaPoint is a pioneer of using blockchain technology to create secure, stable institutional-grade software solutions for the issuance and exchange of digital assets. Since 2013, more than 150 client institutions in over 35 countries have chosen AlphaPoint’s software solutions to trade digital assets and execute their blockchain strategies. Get to know AlphaPoint by exploring our extensive history of media coverage.

Request a Demo, and we’ll walk you through our exchange platform.

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