This is the 17th edition of the dYdX Epoch Review, presenting updates from the dYdX community and ecosystem. To learn more, join us on Discord, Twitter, and the Community Forums.

Key Metrics

Performance Indicators

For Epoch 16 (October 25, 2022 15:00 UTC - November 22, 2022 15:00 UTC). No addresses were identified as wash trading during Epoch 16.

Trading Rewards

2,876,712 $DYDX were earned over the course of Epoch 16 and will be distributed to 3,256 traders. This is a significant increase from Epoch 15 where 2,103 traders were eligible for trading rewards.  Learn more about the trading rewards program in our documentation or blog posts.

Liquidity Provider Rewards

1,150,685 $DYDX were earned over the course of Epoch 16 and will be distributed to 73 addresses who were eligible for LP rewards in Epoch 15. Competition in the pool decreased to the previous epoch where 73 addresses were eligible. Market makers meeting the 0.25% threshold in Epoch 16 are now eligible to earn rewards in Epoch 17.

65 addresses (53 existing and 12 new) did more than =>0.25% of maker volume in Epoch 16. Learn more about the LP Rewards in our documentation, or our blog posts.

Liquidity Module

In Epoch 15, the dYdX community voted to effectively wind down the Liquidity Module by setting rewards per second for staking $USDC to 0. If you still hold stkUSDC make sure to withdraw or request to withdraw by December 17, 2022 (3 days before the blackout period for Epoch 17) to withdraw your $stkUSDC in Epoch 18.

Safety Module

39M $DYDX from 4,462 users was staked to the Safety Module. In epoch 15, the dYdX community strongly supported (7.7M $DYDX / 93% of the vote) the Snapshot vote created by Xenophonlabs.eth to effectively wind down the safety staking module. Here is a tweet thread from Xenophon Labs on why the safety module should be wound down

Following up on the Snapshot poll, Reverie created an on-chain vote on November 21. This on-chain DIP has passed with 29M DYDX (152 addresses) voting to wind down the safety module. The proposal has now been queued, and can be executed over a period of 7 days on November 28 when the queue period has ended.

Community Treasury

Approximately 766,703 $DYDX vested in the Community Treasury and 1,342,466 $DYDX accrued in the Rewards Treasury over the course of Epoch 16. The dYdX community now has access to 37M $DYDX that has accrued in the Community Treasury and Rewards Treasury. Learn more about the Community Treasury in our documentation.

Circulating Supply

14.7% of the total $DYDX supply (excluding unearned Retroactive Rewards transferred to the Treasury and the $DYDX vested in the Community Treasury) is considered liquid at the end of Epoch 16. Learn more about the $DYDX allocation in ourdocumentation.

What's next?

• Epoch 16 has ended. Welcome to Epoch 17! Epoch 17 started automatically on November 22 at 15:00 UTC and will end on December 20 at 15:00 UTC.
• The Merkle root was proposed on-chain on November 22 at 23:22 UTC and the 7-day waiting period has begun. Epoch 16 rewards will be claimable here on November 29, at 23:22 UTC (7 days after the end of the epoch plus an 8 hour delay). Once tokens have been claimed, they can be transferred or delegated to dYdX governance.
• The Merkle tree data, which is a list of (address, reward) pairs, is available here. Under the hood, the Merkle Distributor smart contract (0x01d3348601968aB85b4bb028979006eac235a588) will distribute $DYDX token rewards according to a Merkle tree of balances.

dYdX Governance

On-chain DIPs

Winding down the Safety Module: On November 22, the on-chain DIP to wind down the safety module was created by Reverie and Xenophon Labs. Here is a tweet thread from Xenophon Labs on why the safety module should be wound down. This is a follow up to the snapshot which passed with 7.7M $DYDX (675 addresses) voting in support. This proposal aims to:

• Set the rewards generated by staking $DYDX to the Safety Module to 0,
• Reduce the blackout window to 3 days, and
• Remove the deposit functionality for the Safety Module from the https://dydx.community/dashboard.

This on-chain DIP has passed with 29M DYDX (152 addresses) voting to wind down the safety module. The proposal has now been queued, and can be executed over a period of 7 days on November 28 when the queue period has ended.

Snapshot Polls

• Launch the dYdX Operations Trust: On November 22, Reverie created a snapshot to launch an operations subDAO by establishing a Guernsey Purpose Trust entity with $372,000 in $DYDX from the community treasury. The snapshot vote concluded with 7.7M $DYDX (762 addresses) voting in support of the launch. The operations subDAO’s responsibilities include building and iterating on a DAO playbook, establishing fiat banking capabilities for non-crypto expenses (e.g. legal expenses, providers, etc.), and managing a DAO communication channel (e.g. Slack or community-managed Discord). The next steps are for a community member to create an on-chain DIP. Obtaining $DYDX to fund the budget of the operations subDAO requires an on-chain short timelock vote.

dYdX Ecosystem

• dYdX Grants Program (“DGP”) Updates: The dYdX Grants Trust completed Round 16 of funding, which had 5 grants approved for a total funding amount of $28,500. Read more in their blog post.
• Delegation: If you hold $DYDX and/or $stkDYDX but have no time to review proposals, consider delegating the proposing power and/or voting power of your $DYDX and/or $stkDYDX to one of the Endorsed Delegates.

General Updates

• On November 22, dYdX Trading announced the completion of their second out of 5 milestones for dYdX v4. There are now 2 working internal blockchain networks running in perpetuity - one serves as a developer playground, and the other serves as a general testnet. Read more about this milestone here.
• On November 16, Antonio, founder and CEO of dYdX Trading, was featured in a Bloomberg interview. He discussed the state of crypto after the FTX bankruptcy, DeFi, crypto regulation, and the future for crypto. Watch the interview here.
• On November 16, dYdX Foundation hosted an AMA session with Reverie to discuss their DRC on forming the dYdX operations subDAO. Listen to the session here.
• On November 15, the dYdX team posted a recording of an all-hands meeting where they discussed the collapse of FTX. In this recording, Antonio, founder and CEO of dYdX Trading, discusses the importance of brand and community support, how it feels as a competitor of FTX, and the mission for dYdX for the next 2 years. Listen to the recording here.
• On November 15, dYdX launched Swap Mode, which combines the ease of trading on a DEX with the power of trading perpetuals. Swap Mode allows users to trade perpetuals with leverage through a familiar, swap-style UI. Users can swap any supported asset for USD or any other supported asset all using leverage with perpetuals. Read more about the launch here.
• On November 14, Charles D'Haussy, CEO of the dYdX Foundation, was featured in an interview with CoinDesk Turkey, where he shared his experience in crypto, views on the FTX-Alameda event, and the latest dYdX v4 news. Check out the interview here.
• On November 8, dYdX launched a Merch Meme Contest for 24 hours, and contestants who submitted the best memes about DeFi vs CeFi won dYdX merchandise. Read more about the contest here.
• On November 3, Karan Ambwani, India Lead at the dYdX Foundation, was featured in an interview with YourStory, where he discussed the current landscape of DeFi, and its promise to democratize financial services across sectors. Listen to the interview here.
• On November 4, the tick sizes for the ATOM-USD, CRV-USD and MATIC-USD pairs were reduced by a factor of 10. Read more here.
• On November 3, the dYdX Foundation released a blog post about the dYdX Foundation’s take on the dYdX DAO’s near future. This post provides a potential short-term roadmap for the dYdX DAO, so the dYdX community may discuss, iterate on a plan, and take the necessary steps to be prepared for the Mainnet launch of dYdX V4 and beyond. The dYdX DAO will likely consist of several autonomous subDAOs in the near future that each work on core functional areas of the dYdX protocol and are ultimately accountable to the dYdX community. Check out the blog post, and read a summary twitter thread here.