ChangeNOW trading engine speeds non-custodial crypto swaps

ChangeNOW runs a trading engine that executes non-custodial crypto swaps using the company’s own liquidity. The service lets users convert tokens directly from self-custody wallets without depositing funds to the platform. The exchange supports more than 110 blockchains and over 1,500 digital assets, and offers fiat on-ramps through partners that accept Visa, MasterCard, Google Pay, Apple Pay, SEPA, Pix, ACH and other payment methods.

The engine acts as an intermediary between users and centralized or decentralized trading venues. It sources prices from exchange order books and market-data feeds and routes orders through an in-house liquidity pool made up of wallets with balances for specific pairs. Operating from internal reserves reduces some delays tied to network speed and means users do not have to interact with order books or manage fee selection.

A benchmark of 150,000 transactions found a median settlement time for a USDT-to-ETH swap on the platform of under one minute, compared with an industry median near 45 minutes. ChangeNOW notes settlement times vary by token pair and market conditions.

New features expand the platform beyond simple swaps. Private transfers mask the sender’s wallet address and on-chain trail from the recipient while the platform continues required anti-money-laundering checks. The Permanent Exchange Address is a fixed deposit address that automatically converts incoming crypto into a preselected payout coin for recurring receipts. A crypto payment link creates a shareable request for payment in Bitcoin, stablecoins and more than 100 other assets. A prediction markets hub aggregates markets across categories including crypto, politics, finance and pop culture for side-by-side tracking.

ChangeNOW monitors geography and time zones to pre-position inventory for expected demand spikes. The company cites past stress tests such as the 2021 Dogecoin surge, a Monero liquidity crunch and a recent token launch. For thinly traded or volatile pairs the platform manages inventory and may impose minimum or maximum trade sizes; minimums can be as low as about $2. When Ethereum congestion increases, network fees are adjusted and the platform may absorb the cost. The service issues real-time alerts when swaps on networks such as BNB Chain or Solana are likely to run slow due to chain halts, forks or hacks.

Customer support and incident response use layered teams: a community team on social channels, a first-line team for chat and email tickets, and escalation to L2 and L3 engineering teams on call around the clock. Emergencies trigger a rapid-response protocol that engages senior engineers. ChangeNOW reports a 4.6 Trustpilot score based on more than 13,000 reviews.

Chief Strategy Officer Pauline Shangett described privacy as a long-standing focus for the company and said features such as cross-DEX bridging and private transfers serve business-to-business and business-to-consumer flows as well as the platform’s self-custody NOW Wallet.