edgeX: How the Unissued Perptual Futures DEX Became the King of Revenue?

Author: Jaleel plus six

Original Title: This DEX that didn't issue tokens has revenue exceeding Uniswap

Most people know that the most profitable business in the crypto world is contracts.

But can you imagine, a low-key dark horse Perp DEX that has only been operating for a year, surpassing Ethereum, Base and other leading public chains in 24-hour revenue? When the time frame is extended to 7 days, it has trampled all the DeFi veterans like Uniswap, Jupiter, AAVE, and Lido. It is not only one of the few projects in the top 15 daily revenue rankings that hasn't issued a token, but also the perp DEX with the best liquidity depth for buying BTC and ETH within a 0.01% price difference range.

This new revenue curve "monster" is called edgeX.

Why is the revenue curve so fierce?

Unlike the well-known Hyperliquid, edgeX is a ZK architecture perp dex. The team is incubated by Amber, and its core members consist of a group with deep experience in high-frequency trading from firms like Goldman Sachs and Jump Trading. In terms of product form, edgeX resembles a "fully stacked on-chain financial base": in addition to the perp dex, there are also two other product lines, eStrategy (vault) and edgeX chain.

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, the quality of a product is directly reflected in its revenue. Therefore, by comparing the revenue within the perp dex track, we can more directly see the ferocity of edgeX.

As a perp DEX that has only been operating for a year, edgeX's trading fee revenue in the past 30 days was $10.53M, far exceeding the $3.85M of veteran GMX and the $1.92M of dYdX. In other words, edgeX's revenue is almost more than twice that of GMX and more than five times that of dYdX.

Data source: DefiLlama

So, how did edgeX break into the first tier of perp dex through the revenue curve? The answer may lie in trading depth and fee rates, the two pieces of data that traders care about the most and find most intuitive.

In terms of liquidity depth, edgeX currently ranks second among all Perp DEXs. Taking the core pair BTC/USDT as an example, within a 0.01% spread range, edgeX's order book can support up to $6M in BTC order volume, surpassing hyperliquid ($5M), Aster ($4M), and Lighter ($1M). Although the overall depth is still slightly inferior to hyperliquid, edgeX has the best depth among Perp DEXs except for hyperliquid for the vast majority of coins. For more in-depth discussion on this point, you can refer to edgeX's research head Dan's latest article "Understanding DEX Liquidity: A Comparative Look at Trading Efficiency," which provides a deeper discussion, so I won't elaborate further here.

In addition, edgeX offers highly competitive rates for both Maker and Taker: Maker only 0.015%, Taker 0.038%, significantly lower than Hyperliquid's 0.045%. Furthermore, users can unlock VIP1 status by registering through an ambassador referral link, and the Taker rate can be further reduced to 0.036%. Becoming an ambassador also allows for a maximum of 35% fee rebate—saving on trading costs while continuously accumulating airdrop points.

With such trading depth and fee advantages, edgeX's moat has naturally formed, which has also driven the growth of the revenue curve. Even though no tokens have been issued yet, it proves that edgeX has the ability for continuous "token buybacks" and to generate funds for ecological construction.

What's even more intriguing is to look at the overall income leaderboard: among the Top 15 protocols (excluding the issuers of the stablecoins USDT and USDC), only four remain that have not yet issued a token, and edgeX is one of them.

Data source: DefiLlama

Many friends in the Chinese-speaking community may not have heard of the name of this dark horse, as this perp dex seldom engages in so-called narrative packaging, with its community audience more prevalent in South Korea and North America.

In other words, this is a clear high-income, low-valuation, and still in the token window period scarce Alpha.

Currently, edgeX uses edgeX Points as a contribution metric, which are distributed weekly. A total of 2.4 M has been distributed so far, and the ways to earn include trading volume, holdings, vault participation, and invitations, among others. At the same time, the edgeX Messenger Ambassador Program is underway.

Transaction volume can be manipulated, but profit income is hard to fake. Whether in traditional finance or the web3 industry, only the genuine willingness to pay from users in real money is the most direct validation of "product sustainability."

In less than a year, edgeX has achieved a cash flow ranking in the top 15 of the industry, which is a highly certain growth curve, and perhaps also a strongly certain alpha. What FDV will it launch at in the next stage, and what kind of returns will it provide to early participants? We can look forward to that.