case study: centralized crypto exchange

We developed a high-performance centralized crypto exchange with an integrated BNIX token used for governance and voting among platform owners. The platform supports spot and futures trading, fiat gateways, referral modules, and dynamic liquidity synchronized with Binance. Our team implemented a scalable microservice architecture, blockchain integration, and full DevOps automation within just five months.

Client and Vision

A client approached us with a request to develop a centralized crypto exchange that could be jointly managed by multiple stakeholders. To make this governance process transparent and efficient, we proposed creating a native BNIX token — used for voting and decision-making on key platform updates. This feature transformed the project into a tokenized governance ecosystem.

Goals and Key Features

Together with the client, we defined the core functionality of the exchange:

• Spot and futures trading
• BNIX token integration for governance
• Fiat payment gateway and instant swap module
• Referral system for influencers and partners
• Scalable architecture with self-hosted crypto nodes

Because the client planned for rapid market entry and growth, we decided to deploy our own crypto nodes and involve a senior DevOps engineer to set up full synchronization across networks.

To ensure liquidity, the exchange connects to Binance in real time if the internal balance becomes insufficient. Thus, we decided to develop a financial balancing system that effectively used internal reserves.

It is worth mentioning the admin panel, which allows for flexible management of the entire platform. Thanks to the joint work of the project manager and the product owner, we managed to achieve an effective balance - to build an advanced project management system with minimal effort.

Planning and Design Phase

Our design team created over 200 UI mockups in Figma over the course of three weeks, including dashboards, sales screens, partner portals, and admin panels. It was a lot of work, but the pre-designed userflow made the work much easier and helped structure all the pages.

Considering that 45% of all users use mobile phones, our team has separately prepared layouts for the mobile version.

The project was managed in YouTrack, divided into milestones under a hybrid Kanban/Scrum methodology for flexibility and speed.

During early discussions, we introduced an additional feature — a paid token listing system that allows new tokens to be added on a commercial basis, generating extra revenue for the platform.

Architecture

We implemented a microservice architecture where every core module — trading, deposits, KYC/AML, referrals, admin, and governance — runs independently with its own API.

The infrastructure was initially deployed in AWS Cloud for stability. But we didn't budget for maintaining the platform and cryptocurrency nodes, which required a lot of resources. When the server bill crossed the $4,000 mark, we offered to migrate to another provider - Hetzner.

It took us a couple of days to migrate, but it reduced costs by almost 6 times. Although Hetzner does not have such a developed server architecture, at the initial stage it was enough for us. It was decided that we would return to AWS Cloud when the company starts generating stable income.

As it turned out, the decision was correct and economically beneficial, especially at the initial stage of development.

DevOps and Infrastructure

Our DevOps team launched a robust cloud infrastructure using AWS EC2 instances for each crypto node: BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP, TRON, and BNB.

As the blockchain data grew faster than expected, we built automatic scaling and monitoring using Prometheus and Grafana.

We set up a CI/CD pipeline in GitLab with separate staging and production environments and rollback protection.

Development Process

The backend was developed with Laravel and Node.js, the frontend with React.js, and blockchain logic on Solidity.

We used GitLab as our version control system, isolating each microservice for safer updates and parallel development.

During development, we encountered several challenges:

• XRP deposits were unstable, so we rebuilt the module using direct RPC connections, which fixed synchronization issues.
• The referral system required dynamic bonus logic for influencers — we created a dedicated analytics and reward module.
• The BNIX governance module allowed investors to create polls, vote with tokens, and automatically record results on-chain, providing a transparent decision-making mechanism.

Results

Development time: 5 months

Team: 3 backend, 2 frontend, 2 QA, 1 DevOps, 1 designer, 1 blockchain developer, 1 project manager

Tech stack: Laravel, Node.js, React, Solidity, AWS, Hetzner, Docker, GitLab CI/CD

Complexity level: 5/5

This project became a great example of how our team transforms complex ideas into scalable, secure, and high-performance trading platforms.

Despite challenges — such as infrastructure costs, referral logic, and node maintenance — we delivered a stable product ready for global scaling.

At Merehead, we believe that the success of a crypto exchange depends not only on code but also on the strength, flexibility, and expertise of the team. If you’re looking to build your own trading platform, we’ll help you do it — from architecture to launch and beyond.