dYdX Chain progresses from beta stage to full trading

The dYdX Chain has officially advanced into full production trading mode from its beta stage following a community vote on 28 November 2023.

This comes after a successful and lengthy preparatory phase of its trading from Alpha to Beta phase. The dydx.trade will be operated by dYdX operations subDAO.

The markets of $ETH, $BTC, $SOL, and $LINK have been made available to trade at dydx.trade, with new markets planned to be continuously added to the frontend in the coming weeks.

Validators and stakers will also enjoy trading rewards. As per the official announcement, 50,000 $DYDX per day is available to be earned by traders on the chain. The rewards will be distributed immediately after each successful trade on the protocol.

This is much faster as compared to the previous month-long waiting period. During the beta testing phase, the platform had already recorded approximately $1.86 million in trading volume.

Full trading would also be accompanied by the protocol’s migration from the Ethereum ($ETH) chain to the dYdX one. A permissionless and autonomous one-way bridge called the wethDYDX Smart Contract will accomplish this task. This change will permanently lock the users’ ethDYDX tokens in exchange for wethDYDX on Ethereum and DYDX (the L1 token that powers the dYdX Chain).

The latest development also comes along with the introduction of a 6-month incentive program. The ‘Launch Incentives Program’ is managed and run by Chaos Labs. Through this, active traders will receive rewards for performing various activities on the dYdX chain.

A total of $20 million of $DYDX in incentives is set to be distributed via this program where it will be managed by the dYdX Foundation. About 80% of rewards will go towards trading activity, while 20% will go towards market maker activity.

The rewards will be distributed based on a points system for using the dYdX Chain. This program will closely monitor the protocol and could adjust these weights as activity on dYdX Chain evolves. However, it is to be noted that the distribution of rewards as part of the incentive program is still subject to community vote.

The rewards for traders on the dYdX Chain will be in accordance to their overall level of trading activity as measured by trading fees paid. Accounting for 70-85% of the program’s allocation of rewards for traders, the chunk will make up the majority of the Launch Incentives Program rewards. The remaining 15-30% will be used to pay out performance-based rewards designed in a league format.

In the performance-based prizes, the program will segment traders by their average equity over a trading season. The prizes will be distributed according to a trader’s rank within their segment and the most profitable traders will earn the most rewards. The team explained this further saying:

“Traders will be promoted and relegated based on their performance in a trading season. The different tiers allow participation in these rewards at all levels. These performance-based rewards would begin in the second trading season, once traders have finished an initial season sort themselves into segments. Volume data in trading season 1 will define the initial segment placements in season 2.”

The latest news didn’t do much to the $DYDX token as it was down by over 1% daily, changing hands for $3.14 at press time. The coin has been trading between the range of $1.50 and $3 for the most part of this year.