DYDX Token to Become the Native Asset for dYdX Chain on Cosmos

Last year, decentralized exchange dYdX decided to move from Ethereum to its own chain on Cosmos.

The dYdX community ratified a proposal to enable dYdX chain, which sits within the Cosmos ecosystem, to adopt the exchange’s token DYDX as its native token.

A vote was proposed by market maker Wintermute on August 29 on Snapshot. The vote, which concluded on Sep. 2, received overwhelming support with around 99% of addresses voting in favor of the decision —  36 million votes from 392 addresses were in favor of the decision, while 43 votes from four addresses were against. The community also approved the upgrade of the protocol to version four, which means that dYdX chain will become the next version of the protocol.

Founded in 2018, dYdX is a decentralized derivatives exchange. The exchange currently operates on StarkEx, an Ethereum layer 2 network. Last year, it announced plans to create its own chain, known as dYdX chain, in the Cosmos ecosystem.

The dYdX foundation, a nonprofit organization behind the protocol, explained to the community that,  as dYdX chain will be a proof-of-stake network, it will require a token  to secure the chain and govern the network.

“DYDX is now officially planned to be the base token of the dYdX chain,” said Antonio Juliano, the founder of dYdX, on X following the vote.

As part of the proposal, an Ethereum smart contract will be built and managed by the dYdX foundation to enable permissionless one-way transfer of DYDX tokens from Ethereum to the new chain on Cosmos.

DYDX is currently trading around $2, which is an increase of 0.3% within the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko.

The decentralized exchange is backed by investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm and Bain Capital. Within the last 24 hours, it traded $251 million in volume across 134,613 trades, according to its website.