dYdX is a decentralized exchange for perpetual futures, and since December 2025 for spot trading, that runs on its own blockchain, the dYdX Chain. Traders keep control of their funds and trade through an order book run by the chain's validators. DYDX is the chain's native token, used for staking, governance and trading fee discounts.
Is dYdX built on Ethereum?
Not any more. dYdX started on Ethereum in 2017 and ran its perpetuals exchange on an Ethereum layer 2 from 2021. In October 2023 it moved to its own proof-of-stake chain, built with the Cosmos SDK, and the old layer 2 exchange was wound down on 28 October 2024.
DYDX is staked to the validators that run the dYdX Chain, and stakers earn a share of protocol fees. Holders vote on chain on trading rules, market listings, validator rewards and the community treasury. Since January 2026, staking DYDX also lowers your trading fees on dYdX.
Where do dYdX's trading fees go?
Under Proposal #313, passed on 13 November 2025, 75% of net protocol revenue is used to buy DYDX on the open market, and the bought tokens are staked rather than burned. Another 5% goes to the Treasury SubDAO and 5% to MegaVault, and the rest continues to fund rewards for stakers and validators.
Can US users trade on dYdX?
Partly. When dYdX launched spot trading on 11 December 2025, starting with Solana, it opened that product to users in the United States for the first time. Perpetual futures are still not available to US users.
What stablecoin does dYdX use?
dYdX margins and settles every market in USDC. It has used USDC from Noble, a Cosmos chain, but Circle is ending its support for Noble, and dYdX is moving to Circle's native USDC on Injective (USDC.inj) as its only trading collateral. The migration opened on 11 September 2026, so follow dYdX's own instructions before moving funds.
Can I still convert ethDYDX to DYDX?
No. The bridge from the old Ethereum token, ethDYDX, to native DYDX on the dYdX Chain stopped being supported on 13 June 2025 after a governance vote. ethDYDX sent to the bridge contract now is locked for good, and about 41.7 million ethDYDX had not been bridged when it closed.
What is MegaVault?
MegaVault is a shared USDC vault on dYdX, added with the Unlimited upgrade on 19 November 2024. Depositors provide the starting liquidity for new markets, which anyone can now list without a governance vote, and the vault earns from market making. Since November 2025 it also receives 5% of net protocol revenue.
How many DYDX tokens are there?
DYDX has a total supply of 1 billion tokens. The token launched on Ethereum in September 2021 and now lives on the dYdX Chain. The live circulating supply is shown in the market data on this page.
Is dYdX decentralized?
dYdX Chain is run by independent validators chosen by DYDX stake, and changes are decided by on-chain votes; the dYdX Foundation supports governance and dYdX Labs builds the software and main app. Validators see orders before they are matched, so the protocol relies on monitoring and slashing to discourage front-running, and decentralization depends on how evenly stake is spread.
What is dYdX?
dYdX is a decentralized exchange for perpetual futures that runs on its own blockchain, the dYdX Chain. Traders buy and sell through an order book, as on a centralized exchange, but they keep control of their funds, and every trade settles on the chain. Since December 2025 dYdX has also offered spot trading.
DYDX is the chain's native token. It is staked to the validators that run the network and its order book, it is used to vote on how the protocol is run, and staking it lowers trading fees. Most of the protocol's revenue is used to buy DYDX on the open market. dYdX started on Ethereum in 2017 and moved to its own chain, built with the Cosmos SDK, in October 2023.
dYdX at a glance
Item
Detail
Type
Decentralized derivatives and spot exchange on its own blockchain
Token
DYDX (staking, governance, fee discounts)
Chain
dYdX Chain, built with the Cosmos SDK and CometBFT
75% of net protocol revenue buys DYDX (since November 2025)
How does dYdX work?
dYdX Chain is an application-specific blockchain: a chain that exists to run one exchange. It is built with the Cosmos SDK, a toolkit for building blockchains, and uses CometBFT consensus, so blocks are final as soon as they are confirmed.
Order book run by validators: each validator keeps the open orders in memory and matches them, and orders are passed between validators across the network. Only the results, the trades that were filled, are written to the chain. This is how dYdX offers an order book with the speed active traders expect without writing every order and cancellation on chain.
Settlement on chain: account balances, profit and loss, funding payments, margin checks and liquidations are all recorded on the chain, so anyone can check them.
Oracle prices from validators: validators also report prices from several sources, and the chain combines them into the price used for margin checks, funding and liquidations. Read more about blockchain oracles.
Staking and security: validators are chosen by how much DYDX is staked to them. A validator that misbehaves or goes offline can have part of its stake taken away (slashed).
dYdX moved here from an Ethereum layer 2 to control its own fees, block production and order matching, at the cost of no longer sharing Ethereum's security.
USDC on dYdX
Every market on dYdX is margined and settled in USDC, a dollar stablecoin. Until now dYdX has used USDC issued through Noble, a Cosmos chain, and moved across chains with Circle's CCTP.
That is changing. Circle is ending its support for Noble: new USDC minting there stops on 13 October 2026, and Circle's minting and CCTP access for Noble end on 13 January 2027. On 10 September 2026 the Cosmos ecosystem chose Circle's native USDC on Injective (shown as USDC.inj) as its replacement, and dYdX is to adopt USDC.inj as its only eligible trading collateral. The migration opened on 11 September 2026, and dYdX is publishing its own timing and instructions; check them before moving funds. See the USDC price and the Injective price for live market data.
What you can trade on dYdX
Perpetual futures: dYdX's main product. A perpetual future tracks an asset's price with no expiry date, and traders can go long or short with leverage that varies by market, with lower limits on smaller and newer markets. Funding payments between longs and shorts keep the contract close to the asset's price; learn how funding rates work. Positions whose collateral falls below the maintenance margin are liquidated, and liquidation penalties go to an insurance fund. See how liquidation works on perp DEXs.
Permissionless markets and MegaVault: since the Unlimited upgrade of 19 November 2024, anyone can list a new perpetual market for an asset that has a reliable oracle price, without a governance vote. New markets draw their starting liquidity from MegaVault, a shared USDC vault that users deposit into and that earns from market making.
Event markets: dYdX has listed outcome-based markets as perpetual contracts that track a probability. The first, a market on the 2024 US presidential election, launched on 14 October 2024. Read more about prediction markets.
Spot trading: on 11 December 2025 dYdX launched spot trading, starting with Solana. It was the first dYdX product open to users in the United States. Perpetual futures are still not available to US users.
What is the DYDX token used for?
Staking: DYDX holders stake their tokens to validators to secure the chain, and earn a share of the protocol's fees in return. Staked tokens take time to unbond before they can be moved.
Governance: DYDX holders vote on margin and liquidation rules, funding parameters, market listings that need a vote, validator rewards, the use of the community treasury and how revenue is split. Votes take place on the chain itself. Read more about how DAOs work.
Fee discounts: since January 2026 traders who stake DYDX pay lower trading fees. The size of the discount depends on how much DYDX is staked and on the trader's volume, and governance can change the tiers.
Fees, buybacks and staking rewards
dYdX earns trading fees in USDC. How that revenue is split is set by governance, and it changed in 2025.
A buyback programme started in March 2025 with 25% of net protocol revenue. On 13 November 2025 governance passed Proposal #313, which raised the share to 75%. Under it, 75% of net protocol revenue is used to buy DYDX on the open market and stake it, 5% goes to the Treasury SubDAO and 5% to MegaVault. The rest continues to fund rewards for stakers and validators.
So DYDX stakers no longer receive the whole of the trading and gas fees, as they did when the chain launched. Most of the revenue now goes into buying DYDX, and those bought tokens are staked, not burned.
DYDX supply and the old ethDYDX token
DYDX has a total supply of 1 billion tokens. The token first launched on Ethereum in September 2021 as an ERC-20 token, now called ethDYDX. When dYdX moved to its own chain, holders could bridge ethDYDX one way to native DYDX on the dYdX Chain.
That bridge has closed. Governance voted to end support for it, and from 13 June 2025 the dYdX Chain no longer recognises it: ethDYDX can no longer be converted, and any sent to the bridge contract is locked for good. About 41.7 million ethDYDX had not been bridged when it closed, so the DYDX on the dYdX Chain is the token the protocol uses today. The live circulating supply is shown in the market data on this page.
From Ethereum to its own chain
Date
Milestone
2017
dYdX founded by Antonio Juliano; lending and margin trading on Ethereum
April 2021
Perpetual futures launch on a StarkEx layer 2 on Ethereum (v3)
September 2021
DYDX token launches on Ethereum
October 2023
dYdX Chain (v4), built with the Cosmos SDK, goes live
14 October 2024
First prediction-market perpetual (2024 US election)
28 October 2024
The old v3 exchange on Ethereum's layer 2 is wound down
19 November 2024
Unlimited upgrade: permissionless listings and MegaVault
March 2025
Buyback programme starts at 25% of revenue
13 June 2025
ethDYDX bridge no longer supported
13 November 2025
Proposal #313: buybacks raised to 75% of net revenue
11 December 2025
Spot trading launches, starting with Solana, including for US users
January 2026
Trading fee discounts for DYDX stakers
September 2026
Collateral migration from Noble USDC to USDC.inj begins
Who runs dYdX?
No single company runs the dYdX Chain. Independent validators run the nodes and the order book, and DYDX holders decide changes through on-chain votes. The dYdX Foundation, a Swiss non-profit, supports the community and governance, and dYdX Labs (dYdX Trading Inc.), the original developer, builds the software and the main trading app. Other teams can run their own front ends.
Running the order book through validators brings its own trade-offs. A validator sees orders before they are matched, so dYdX relies on monitoring, governance rules and slashing to discourage validators from reordering or front-running trades. How decentralized the network is also depends on how evenly stake is spread across validators.
Risks to know
DYDX's price can move sharply in either direction. Leveraged trading can lose your whole collateral quickly, and funding payments add up while a position is open. dYdX depends on its validators, its oracle prices and its USDC collateral, and the switch from Noble USDC to USDC.inj means traders have to follow dYdX's migration instructions. The software can contain bugs that attackers exploit, like any DeFi protocol, and perpetual futures are restricted in many countries, including for US users on dYdX. This page explains how dYdX works and is not financial advice.
DYDX and the Bitcoin.com Wallet
DYDX lives on the dYdX Chain, which is not one of the networks the self-custody Bitcoin.com Wallet supports today, so the Wallet cannot hold native DYDX. The Wallet does support Ethereum, where the old ethDYDX token still exists, but ethDYDX can no longer be converted to DYDX. Whatever wallet you use, check which network a DYDX token is on before you send or receive it, and always store your recovery phrase safely.
