Today DDEX announced that they will be moving to Hydro protocol. We are disappointed to see them leave the 0x ecosystem. It can be challenging for crypto businesses to find an edge in the highly competitive DEX space and current crypto climate. The DDEX team have communicated that rolling their own contracts is yet another step in the never ending quest to establish an edge. While we understand their decision, we believe that modularity and standardization will lead to greater innovation over time.



0x protocol is designed to support a variety of relayer models including p2p trading, open orderbook, order matching, and beyond. Every model comes with tradeoffs around decentralization, security, and user experience. We acknowledge that there can be tension around how these tradeoffs are measured by different teams. We invite developers to use the protocol in new, creative ways and provide feedback on how we can better accommodate new use cases. Our monthly developer call, research forum, and Discord server are public and we welcome open dialogue regarding the 0x roadmap.



The DDEX team has communicated that Hydro protocol is intended to support pooling of liquidity between different matching relayers in a manner that is similar to R1 protocol. One of the benefits of the modular architecture offered by 0x v2.0 is that it makes it simple for developers to support this use case, among many others, with just a few lines of code. This capability is particularly exciting as it allows us to rapidly experiment with new extensions to 0x, including trade execution coordinators (TECs), which allow us to eliminate some of the tradeoffs associated with existing relayer models. TECs give guarantees around trade execution similar to order matchers, yet provide the flexibility of an open orderbook, which is needed for DeFi applications. Along with several other initiatives (stay tuned), we believe implementing a TEC model will allow us to build the most liquid DEX ecosystem in the next 6 months.



Regarding the ZRX token, it is important to review why the ZRX token exists in the first place. Our long-term goal is for ZRX to drive a governance process in which ecosystem participants securely execute protocol upgrades and manage a community treasury. Ultimately, the role of ZRX may evolve through community governance to adapt to changes in the greater crypto landscape. We recently presented at Devcon 4 on how we intend hand over control of the network to ZRX holders. DDEX migrating to their own protocol underscores the importance of governance and giving stakeholders a voice in how the 0x protocol evolves.



One of the 0x Team’s core values is to focus on long-term impact and we’ve been explicit about our philosophy that creating value for our ecosystem participants is more important than anything else. Our team is heads down building market making tools, a liquidity incentivization program, and products that will accelerate the growth of the ecosystem. We will continue building towards a decentralized financial system that is more efficient, transparent, and equitable than any that has existed in the past.