May '24 Update

dYdX Ecosystem Development Program Update

In March, the dYdX Grants Program transitioned to the dYdX Ecosystem Development Program (“DEP”) following a successful governance proposal which included $12M in added funding from the community treasury. Since the DEP launched, the team has been hard at work revamping the program, approving new grants, and maintaining existing projects.

Our mission is simple: to grow the dYdX ecosystem with community and professional contributors. We work with providers to maintain protocol infrastructure, partner with collaborators to offer supporting services, recruit developers to build new things, and grow the community through unique initiatives. More than just grants, the program strives to sustain and develop the protocol with long-term partnerships and initiatives.

We’re excited to share with you the latest updates from our work!

Quick Updates

• 32 grants approved with over $5M in funding
• Partnering with Market Makers and Centralized Exchanges to improve DYDX liquidity and adoption
• dYdX Champions initiative launched to fund community event gatherings
• Completed operational migration from dYdX Grants to dYdX Ecosystem Development Program
• $6M in available funding remains for new grants

New Grants

Below, we highlight a few of our recent grant approvals. More detailed information on each grant can be found here: https://www.dydxgrants.com/funded-grants

As a reminder, the program allocates funding between two buckets, Strategic Initiatives and Community Initiatives. This improves the program’s efficiency and allows for more contributors. Community initiatives focus on projects that grow the dYdX ecosystem and contributor set. Strategic initiatives target larger scale projects that contribute to the development, growth, and improvement of the dYdX protocol.

Strategic Initiatives

Long Tail Market Making Services

RavenDAO and Velar Technologies

In response to the growing number of new long-tail markets listed, the DEP has partnered with active dYdX market makers to improve liquidity and orderbook depth across the protocol. These partners serve as dedicated market makers to improve the trading experience on long-tail markets.

IBC Monitoring and Alerting Support

Range

The Range platform and services will provide dYdX with additional assurances on the state of our IBC relaying network and flow of assets. Since the protocol is dependent on Noble USDC, an outside token, this support can improve the security and health of the protocol.

Malicious App Detection and Signature Blocking

Blockaid

The crypto space is flooded with malicious actors deploying scam and fraudulent applications in an attempt to steal funds from honest users. By partnering with Blockaid, we hope to catch these malicious actors in real time and prevent users from interacting with any scam requests, protecting the dYdX community.

API Endpoints for Circulating Supply, Fees, Rewards, and APR

Antero Eloranta and Juuso

With the new protocol has arrived a series of new important metrics and data points, many of which external providers and platforms would like to query for insights on the chain. This project implements new API points to improve the accessibility of chain related data, including DYDX supply, trading fees, rewards, and the staking APR.

Full Feature Python Trading Client

Nethermind

Though the protocol does have an early version of a python client live, most programmatic traders have found this client to be lacking important functionality. With this grant, we intend to release a feature complete, easily accessible, and well maintained python client for all users wanting to trade programmatically.

Slinky Oracle and Market Mapper Integration

Skip Protocol

There is only so much the protocol can do to scale operations given limitations with CometBFT and the SDK. Through Skip’s sidecar solution, Slinky, the dYdX protocol will improve its pricing oracle mechanism and enable fully permissionless market listings deployed through the validator set instead of governance.

LP Vault Research

Lattice Research Cayman, Inc.

The latest dYdX upgrade, v5.0.0, will include the launch of liquidity vaults, used to support the addition of liquidity on markets through an automatic market making strategy. Given the risks involved with market making, we’ve partnered with Lattice Research to conduct in-depth analysis on the performance and risks involved with the vault strategies employed. Our goal is to provide users with insight on strategy such that they have a full understanding prior to depositing funds.

Community Initiatives

German, Dutch, Chinese, and Korean Engagement Campaigns

BTC-Echo, Crypto-Insiders, Jihoon Yi, ODaily, WuBlockchain

In an effort to expand the global footprint of dYdX, we’ve partnered with teams from regional hotspots to promote the protocol with targeted marketing and content production. Our hope is to onboard new users at a global scale, while also building out regional trading communities passionate about dYdX.

Hummingbot Support for dYdX v4

Hummingbot Foundation

Hummingbot, the leading programmatic trading connector, will add support for the dYdX Chain, allowing traders to plug into the new protocol through their existing trading programs. With this, we hope to attract more trading volume and onboard new users.

Project Updates

Below, we share a few important updates from our ongoing projects, including milestones hit and completed deliverables.

dYdX Frontend Improvement

Nabla

The new dYdX product runs on a DAO-maintained deployment of the fully open source front end codebase, v4-web. The DEP partnered with Nabla to improve a few pages and features of the front end, including the market listing page and exportable history for user trades. Nabla is the first external contributor to push code on this repo, marking an exciting milestone for the decentralized ownership of our protocol.

DYDX Token Liquidity Initiative

Pulsar

The DEP is working with Pulsar to improve the liquidity of the DYDX token across centralizex exchanges, with the goal of enabling more features such as withdrawals and allow for easier entry into the dYdX ecosystem. As of this week, Pulsar is now actively market making across key venues, including Binance, OKX, and Coinbase International.

Binance & KuCoin dYdX Chain Support

Binance, KuCoin

In an effort to improve mainstream adoption of the new dYdX Chain and its token, we partnered with leading centralized exchanges to add support for the protocol. Support includes deposits, withdrawals, trading, and in-app staking of the dYdX Chain token. We’re happy to share that Binance and KuCoin have both completed their integration, and now support deposits for the DYDX token. Through our liquidity initiative, withdrawals should be enabled in the near future.

New Initiatives

Below, we highlight new initiatives published that are open for applications. These RFPs (request for proposal) invite contributors to apply for specific projects and ideas that we think could have a positive impact on the protocol.

Submit your application here.

dYdX Champions - IRL Event Sponsorships

We’re excited to announce the “IRL Champions” sponsorship initiative, aimed at recognizing and rewarding exceptional individuals within our trading community. This initiative is designed to provide all-expenses-paid opportunities for outstanding community members to attend leading blockchain conferences worldwide. Through this program, dYdX Champions will foster a stronger, more engaged community, and increase dYdX’s visibility globally. We’ll be sharing updates on the events eligible for sponsorship – keep an eye out for more!

Operational Updates

Financials

Balance

DYDX: 913,501.982

USDC: 9,227,540.48

Total USD Balance (at current DYDX price): $11,054,543.96

Payables

Outstanding Funding Approved: $2,839,586.69

Outstanding Operational Budget: $1,947,000.00

Total Budget Remaining: $6,267,957.28

Expenses

Operational Expenses (databases, hosting,  admin services, etc..): $2,753.91

Legal Expenses (updates to the trust, legal guidance on agreements): $3,542.42

Disclosures

In this section, we highlight the steps taken to mitigate conflicts in the funding process in accordance with our policy.

• Wintermute Trading abstained from voting on the grant approval to Chaos Labs due to investment conflicts.
• Colin Chan abstained from voting on the grant approval to Chaos Labs due to contractor related engagements.
• Reverie abstained from recommending funding decisions related to Chaos Labs, Range, Blockaid, and Skip given small investment conflicts.

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