Here’s the thing nobody tells you when you first start looking into launching a crypto trading service: building everything from scratch is, frankly, a nightmare. Not just technically – though yes, that too – but financially, legally, and in terms of sheer time. A full custom exchange, built properly, can take two to three years and burn through millions in development costs before a single trade gets executed. Most businesses don’t have that runway. Most don’t want it either.

So the market found a workaround. And it’s a pretty elegant one.

What the Market Figured Out – and Fast