We are excited to announce the date and details of the ZRX token launch. Purchasers will be required to go through a mandatory registration process that will take place from August 9th to August 11th. Registered purchasers will then be able to participate in the token launch starting August 15th. Detailed registration and purchase instructions will be released in early August.

To learn more about the technical aspects of 0x protocol and the role of ZRX within the network, see our FAQ. Alternatively, watch the technical overview presentation that I recently gave at Coinbase Code School.

Our Values

Technology First

Amir Bandeali and I dropped everything to begin working on 0x protocol back in October 2016 and have since built out an exceptional team. We are a collection of builders and technologists that are laser focused on developing the infrastructure needed to bring the benefits of decentralization to the global financial system. While Ethereum has seen an explosion of interest over the past few months, our team will continue to take a long term view on this important technology and honor our commitment to the community.

Consistently Shipping

Not only will 0x protocol be live on the Ethereum mainnet prior to our token launch, we will be using 0x protocol for our token launch. That’s right, we will distribute ZRX using our fully-functional and thoroughly audited smart contracts running on the Ethereum mainnet. One of our team’s core values is to consistently ship useful tools and products. No amount of marketing can substitute for tangible results and over the past year our team has been working hard to build tools that make 0x protocol useful and accessible for both end users and developers.

0x OTC is a web application that allows users to trade ERC20 tokens directly on the Ethereum blockchain using 0x protocol. We envision 0x OTC facilitating private over-the-counter trades between known counterparties. Behind the scenes, our smart contracts are running on the Kovan test network; try it out today.

0x.js is a javascript library that simplifies the process of building a web application on top of 0x protocol. With 0x.js, you don’t need to be a Solidity expert to interact with the 0x smart contracts, generate orders or execute trades.

Financial Responsibility

The total purchase cap for the ZRX token launch will be set to $24M. We arrived at this number after formalizing our development roadmap and estimating the total costs involved in scaling our team and operating at full size for the next 5 years. 100% of the capital raised in the token launch will be used to develop free and open source software, tools and infrastructure that support 0x protocol and the surrounding ecosystem.

Inclusive Community = Healthy Ecosystem

Individual purchases will be capped to ensure that everyone gets a chance to be a part of the 0x community from the beginning, not just whales. We believe that by widely distributing ZRX, we can foster a healthy community of developers and early adopters that will return more value to our ecosystem over time by building applications, contributing code or evangelizing the technical merits of 0x protocol to future adopters. Each one of these “activist holders” is purchasing tokens with an information edge: they have knowledge of their own future contributions to the ecosystem. Details regarding our sybil-resistant registration process will be released at a later time.

Initial ZRX Allocation

Total Supply (fixed): 1,000,000,000 ZRX

Token Launch (50%)

ZRX is inherently a governance token that plays a critical role in the process of upgrading 0x protocol. We are fully committed to formulating a functional and theoretically sound governance model and we plan to dedicate significant resources to R&D; we will provide greater clarity on the subject of governance in a future post.

Retained by 0x Org (15%)

Retained ZRX tokens will be used to incentivize future team members via token compensation packages as well as to sustain the operations of the 0x core development organization beyond the first five years. These assets will be used to support development at the protocol layer.

External Development Fund (15%)

The External Development Fund will be used to make targeted capital injections into high potential projects and teams that are attempting to grow the 0x ecosystem, strategic partnerships, hackathon prizes and for community development activities. These assets will be used to support development at the application layer.

Founding Team (10%)

The founding team’s allocation of ZRX will vest over a traditional 4 year vesting schedule with a one year cliff. We believe this should be standard practice for any team that is committed to making their project a long term success.

Early Backers & Advisors (10%)

Our backers and advisors have provided capital, resources and guidance that have allowed us to fill out our team, setup a robust legal entity and build a fully functional product before launching a token. As a result, we have a proven track record and can offer a token that holds genuine utility.

Upcoming AMA

We will be fielding an AMA in our Slack channel on Friday (June 30) at 10am PDT to answer questions about the ZRX token launch, 0x protocol and whatever else you are interested in discussing. Make sure not to miss forthcoming announcements by following us on Twitter, Medium and Reddit!