Decentralized Cryptocurrency Exchange IDEX Secures $2.5 Million

By Amit Chowdhry ● Aug 7, 2020
  • IDEX — a leading decentralized cryptocurrency exchange (DEX) — announced that it has raised $2.5 million in a seed investment led by G1 Ventures

IDEX — a leading decentralized cryptocurrency exchange (DEX) — announced that it has raised $2.5 million in a seed investment led by G1 Ventures and Borderless Capital and included participation from Collider Ventures and Gnosis. This funding round will be used to launch IDEX 2.0, a novel high-performance DEX. And the new exchange will combine the speed and features of a centralized exchange (CEX) with the security of a DEX to create an uncompromising trading experience.

In the past, DEXs have lacked liquidity compared to their centralized counterparts, primarily due to not being compatible with the software and strategies of the largest market makers and liquidity providers. And high-latency — driven by on-chain execution — has made it impossible for market makers to quote deep liquidity at tight spreads while unique technology requirements have made DEXs cost-prohibitive for market makers to support. IDEX 2.0 is the first DEX to provide the unique combination of performance and adherence to industry standards thus enabling market makers to support the exchange out of the box with their existing systems.

Traders on the IDEX 2.0 platform are going to benefit from low-latency trade execution, standardized APIs, advanced order types, and a matching engine that can process hundreds of thousands of orders per second. And the API sandbox is now live on testnet, marking the start of a three-phase rollout, with the mainnet launch planned for a few weeks from now. Algorithmic traders and developers writing software to interact with the exchange can get started today.

KEY QUOTES:

“We are thrilled to have the support of industry expert investors to help fuel IDEX 2.0’s growth. Our investors share our understanding that market makers and algorithmic traders are key to our success. Attracting this group requires us to deliver an entirely new product that offers centralized exchange features and performance paired with decentralized security. We’re extremely excited to deliver that with IDEX 2.0, the first DEX that doesn’t sacrifice performance for security.”

— Alex Wearn, IDEX co-founder and CEO

“G1 Ventures is proud to support IDEX in its pursuit of a new generation of high-performance DEXs, complementing our portfolio of digital asset infrastructure investments which, among other verticals, is focused on non-custodial fintech solutions. The IDEX team is the first to marry the benefits of decentralized custody with traditional exchange architecture to create a world-class platform in both performance and security.”

— Eldar Khamitov, Investment Director at G1 Ventures

“In addition to a quality team and industry leading product, IDEX also represents a unique investment opportunity via their IDEX token. This asset not only helps secure the layer-2 network, enabling IDEX to match centralized exchanges in throughput, but also allows stakers to earn a percentage of the trade fees. Stakers earn ETH for their work, rather than IDEX tokens, a more sustainable model that doesn’t rely on short-term asset inflation to create incentives.”

— David Garcia, Founder and Managing Partner at Borderless Capital