This is the weekly “altcoin corner” article where we explore another project in the greater cryptocurrency ecosystem

BitShares DEX has been around for a while and the fiat derivatives they have created often rival Tether in value. This decentralized exchange, besides offering some of our favorite altcoins, has BitShares derivatives in metals, fiat currencies, even BTC.

Bittrex delisted BTS from its exchange across all trading pairs back on October 17th and BitShares value dropped to under 5 cents a BTS. BTS plummeted from ~14 cents to ~5 cents, but those held Bit derivatives saw their BTS balance rise to hold a steady fiat value. This is a great crypto exchange to speculate on Forex, Gold, Silver, as well as BTC and USDT, with margin trading available for most of its derivatives.

Using the BitShares DEX

The derivatives that have their own exchange tabs are BitUSD, BitCNY & BitBTC in addition to tabs for BTC and BTS. The volume still tends to be low on alt trading there, but you can get some great deals on Dash & ETH when Tether starts to lose its peg and sells cheaply for BitUSD.

Getting approved for a fiat gateway for BitShares DEX is a fairly quick and painless process for those who want to be able to fund their trading account from a fiat account. Pretty standard just KYC stuff. You don’t need to open a fiat gateway to use BitShares DEX open ledger for popular altcoin deposits and withdrawals, although with all the recent upgrades to the GUI and listed altcoins, not all open ledger features will always be available for every alt. Really not that much different from centralized exchanges that have to frequent wallet maintenance.

Extra features

BitShares DEX has released a new client that has some nice features to their GUI. They always have low trading fees priced in fractions of a BTS, low withdrawal fees for crypto, and there is margin and settlement trading available for all of their Bit Derivatives. Cancelling trades takes a tiny fee, but these are fractions of a penny, so it is a very economical trading platform with great deposit and withdrawal fees.

There are a few derivatives that I haven’t mentioned that are worth noting.

BTWTY is a derivative of the BitTwenty Index Fund and generally trades at between 40 & 60 BTC. OBITS is the BitShares DEX derivative that has been rising in value of late and it returns quarterly dividends in BTS based on the amount of your holdings.

Binance’s recent listing of BTC and BNB pairs for BTS has boosted BTS price back up to its normal fiat trading value of 15-20 cents, although some crypto analysts say that BTS could rise to a much higher value.

Holding BitShares as an asset is best done by investing in their derivatives which give you a much steadier valuation in their BitUSD value. Traders can choose to speculate on the value of BTS itself or its fiat and precious metal derivatives.