Host:
Patrick Scott - Dynamo Defi
Speakers:
Valentina - BD Manager, ApolloX
Dr_Lvl - Level Finance
Jonezee - Communications Coordinator, GMX
Houston - Community Manager, Perpetual Protocol
SJ - BD, Vertex Protocol
Note: This AMA recap focuses on ApolloX’s answers and has been edited for length and clarity. Listen to the full AMA here: https://twitter.com/Level__Finance/status/1686021436136095744
Introduction
- We’re a decentralized perps DEX on BNB Chain and we have two trading modes:
- Orderbook Futures, a unique matching and settlement model with 80 crypto & token index contracts.
- On-Chain Futures, a fully on-chain liquidity model for more transparent, low slippage trades, with 29 crypto & forex pairs.
- We also have a ready-to-go broker solution for partners looking to launch their own perps DEX platform, which we call ApolloX DEX Engine.
- Personally, I have a TradFi background. I’ve been in crypto for around 3 years and consider myself a native DeFi supporter.
Current Market
Are we in a bull market or a bear market?
- Personally, I feel that we are still in a bear market and will be in the coming months.
- Currently there is no obvious change on capital stock in the crypto market. There’s not really an ongoing fund inflow.
- Current on-chain activities are also just driven by one or two hot events but daily on-chain activity levels are still low.
- At this point, I feel that we may still be in a bear market for at least the next 3-4 months, though I do believe the market will be bullish in the long-term.
Given your perspectives on the market, how is your protocol adapting to that market?
- Aside from product improvements, we definitely regularly generate feedback from our community and do pilot testing for new products.
- During the bear market, we want to grow the pie together. Many protocols would like new revenue generation channels but they cannot find one. We have our perps DEX solution for this.
- For our partners and their users, they can get exposure to perps trading. For us, we can get some cash inflow. We are trying to expand the perps product to not only perps traders, but also to protocols who would like to offer perps to their users.
What narratives in the market do any in the panel see right now, and if there are any synergies your protocol is able to capitalize on?
- There’s another story that is prevalent in crypto — how we can lower the barriers to entry for TradFi or Web2 people to enter DeFi.
- We do see potential for Account Abstraction (AA Wallet), and we do provide this for our users to lower barriers for Web2 people and increase their market education. For a bright future in the bull market, there must be a bunch of Web2 and TradFi people entering crypto to trade and really understanding DeFi.
- We are trying our best to lower the barrier for both wallet and trading experience, maybe even make it similar to traditional trading platforms.
Newcomers to crypto often complain about a difficult UX. What can be done to improve that?
- At this moment for on-chain products it’s still really difficult for newcomers. We need a transition process for newcomers in crypto.
- The reason why many users use CEXs is because the trading experience is similar to what they’re familiar with — like stock trading.
- We believe ApolloX needs to provide a transition process for this reason. We kept our orderbook perps in particular as it provides a UI/UX experience very similar to CEXs. So users can learn to trade with a wallet but the entire process is similar to a CEX.
- After they’ve learnt how to trade with a wallet, users can learn to trade on-chain. This is why we kept both orderbook mode and on-chain mode. It seems a relatively effective process so far.
Building in Crypto
How does your protocol decide what chain to deploy on? What factors do you take into account especially with many L2s launching.
- We do care about chain infrastructure, especially for developer relationship maintenance. As a perp DEX, we want to offer a mature and comprehensive product to our users. So chain performance is important to us.
- Secondly, community support and market potential are important. In the first place, we decided to deploy on BNB Chain because there wasn’t an active futures market yet. It was an opportunity for us.
- Lastly, community engagement and their market recognition are quite important.
- Although we have a relatively large presence on BNB Chain, we do have plans to expand to other chains especially for our on-chain perps product.
Perp DEXes
Perp DEXes has grown tremendously over the past year, but the large majority of perp volume is on centralized exchanges. What has to happen for most CEX users to migrate to DEXes?
- Other than creating a similar experience like CEXs, for DEX perps incentives would be very important. Users would ask why they should trade DEX perps over CEX perps if they do not care about the differences between the two.
- We need to let users know they can earn not only from their trades but also from their behaviours. If users see this value, they will form the intention to move from CEX perps to DEX perps.
What are the biggest barriers to perp DEXes scaling right now?
- Currently, on-chain latency is still the key problem. But we need to think about more than just the technical, the fundamental; but also about commercial concerns.
- If we want to increase the adoption rate of perp DEXs and also DeFi in general, regulatory problems are still a key issue.
- Although as a DEX, we are not supposed to consider this point; but back to reality: With the pie growing we need to find a balance between DEX/DeFi and compliance to make sure that traditional institutions want to join us, and thus increase the market shares of DeFi and perps DEXs.
Any unique features you want to highlight about your platform, and what can we see in the coming weeks/in the future?
- We will continue implementing our multichain strategy and expand to other chains.
- We will also keep developing our broker solution (ApolloX DEX Engine). On BNB Chain, we’ve partnered with PancakeSwap and other leading swap DEXs to launch their perpetual trading platform.
- We’ll expand to other blockchain ecosystems too to help other protocols offer perps to their users and open a revenue generation channel.
Risk Reminder: Crypto trading carries a risk. All trading activities are done at your discretion and at your own risk. The information here should not be regarded as financial or investment advice from ApolloX. ApolloX will not be liable for any loss that might arise from your use of any financial product.
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