Decentralized crypto exchange dYdX will enter the US market by year-end, offering spot trading on Solana and related cryptocurrencies, marking a strategic expansion for the derivatives-focused platform, which was previously unavailable to American users.
President Eddie Zhang confirmed the move in an interview with Reuters, adding that dYdX plans to slash trading fees by up to half across the board upon US launch.
The expansion follows President Donald Trump’s embrace of crypto this year, which triggered dismissals of lawsuits against major crypto platforms and prompted financial regulators to develop specialized digital asset rules.
Zhang emphasized the importance of US availability for the platform’s strategic direction going forward.
Lower Fees, Higher Regulatory Barriers
DYdX will reduce its trading fees to between 50 and 65 basis points upon entering the US market.
The San Francisco-based platform, which has recently surpassed $1.5 trillion in total trading volume since its inception, specializes in perpetual contracts. These derivatives allow traders to speculate on asset prices without ownership or expiration dates.
While perpetual contracts won’t be available to US users initially, dYdX hopes regulators will eventually provide guidance for decentralized platforms to offer these products.
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission indicated last month that they would consider allowing crypto perpetual contracts across regulated U.S. platforms.
Zhang explained that, unlike centralized exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken that act as intermediaries, decentralized platforms like dYdX eliminate middlemen by allowing users to transact directly on blockchain networks.
Strategic Growth Through Acquisition and Infrastructure
The US expansion follows dYdX’s July acquisition of Pocket Protector, a Telegram-native trading app that attracted 50,000 users and reached $1 billion in annualized volume in under a year.
Zhang joined as President through the deal, while co-founder Kaiser Kinbote became Head of Growth.
Founder Antonio Juliano credited Zhang’s experience leading early Messenger development at Meta and launching consumer products as key factors in the acquisition.
“He has strong product instincts, a track record of execution, and a rare ability to zoom between strategy and details,” Juliano wrote in a statement announcing the deal.
Pocket Protector’s core features, including Telegram-based perpetual and spot trading, are being integrated into dYdX’s leading platform.
A four-person engineering team from Pocket Protector joined dYdX’s product and engineering divisions to support the integration and broader expansion efforts.
Platform Enhancements and Tokenomics Evolution
Beyond the acquisition, dYdX has implemented major infrastructure improvements throughout 2025.
The platform resolved critical stability issues during market volatility by assigning dedicated engineers to eliminate downtime and throughput constraints affecting its Indexer system.
Deposit and withdrawal times were reduced from 18 minutes to under one minute through the Skip integration.
Enhanced mobile interfaces rolled out to retail investors, while the web platform added new order types, including reduce-only limit orders, scale orders, and TWAP orders alongside funding rate payment history.
These upgrades supported $270 billion in trading volume and $46 million in net protocol fees across 150 markets during 2024 alone.
The platform’s cumulative trading volume has surpassed $1.46 trillion since 2021, demonstrating sustained growth despite market fluctuations.
In March, dYdX also launched its DYDX Buyback Program, allocating 25% of net protocol fees to systematically purchase and stake DYDX tokens from the open market.
The community-governed initiative aims to strengthen network security and align platform growth with token value as 85% of DYDX tokens have now been unlocked.
Token emissions are set to drop 50% in June 2025, with all unlocks completing by June 2026. The dYdX Community Treasury holds approximately 190 million DYDX tokens, representing 19% of the total supply, which are reserved for future initiatives to ensure long-term ecosystem sustainability.
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