# Overview ## What is Crystal? Crystal is a fully on-chain central limit order book exchange (CLOB), created to bridge the gap between the transparency, security, and permissionless nature of decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and the speed, capital efficiency, and lower fees of traditional centralized exchanges (CEXs). Built on the Monad blockchain, Crystal allows for a seamless CEX-like trading experience while remaining fully self-custodial, permissionless, and decentralized. Crystal is also fully composable and can serve as spot liquidity for any DeFi app as a substitute/addition to automatic market maker (AMM) DEX liquidity. ## Key Features * Crystal's CLOB architecture allows for lower fees and better capital efficiency than traditional AMM DEXs, leading to consistently better quotes for traders. * All activity on Crystal, including but not limited to trade placement and settlement, are executed entirely via smart contracts on the blockchain, eliminating the need for any centralized intermediaries. * Crystal takes advantage of Monad's lightning-fast transactions and near-zero gas fees to ensure a seamless trading experience. Crystal's scalability is only bound by the capacity of it's underlying blockchain, which can process up to 10,000+ transactions per second. * Unlike hybrid order book exchanges which process trades off-chain and settle them on-chain, Crystal is composable with other DeFi applications, functions without any external dependencies, and does not require deposits/withdrawals to a third-party network/custodian. * Crystal's smart contracts are immutable, and there are no privileged parties. All trading and market making is done on an even playing field and accessible to all. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.crystal.exchange/getting-started/overview.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.