0x Ecosystem Update, July 2020
Welcome 👋 to the July 2020 ecosystem update from 0x Tracker, a monthly review of happenings from the 0x ecosystem. Each month we provide 0x trading insights, news from across the 0x ecosystem, and a summary of 0x Tracker updates.
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📈 Trading Insights
- Rockets were taking off across the entire DeFi ecosystem this past month and 0x made sure to not get left behind! $278 million in volume made July the biggest trading month since 0x launched back in 2017.
- July smashed the previous all-time monthly high with a 108% increase over the $133.7 million in volume that was traded back in March 2020 🚀
- Accumulated protocol fees also saw all-time highs broken with $47,333 in fees collected for redistribution within the ecosystem. That’s a 92% increase over the previous monthly record. Over $137,000 in fees have now been collected for redistribution since v3 launched!
- The huge increase in trading volume was given a big boost by the contract bridging functionality introduced in 0x v3. Bridging contracts allow 0x integrators to tap into maker liquidity from on-chain sources like Uniswap, Kyber, Curve.fi etc.
- Bridged volume for July was almost $68 million, 25% of the total order volume filled through 0x. Networked liquidity has officially made it’s big entrance 💥 Moving forward I see networked liquidity posing some interesting questions about how we track trading volume metrics across the wider Ethereum ecosystem.
- Relayers are pivotal to the 0x ecosystem, and Tokenlon has continued to dominate by relaying over $100 million worth of orders in July. Matcha is making big strides since it’s launch at the end of June, processing over $68 million in fills for the month of July. 0x API has also become a key piece of infrastructure, having relayed $53 million worth of (non-Matcha) orders to other apps in the ecosystem.
- Digging into the types of assets that drive 0x trading we see that ETH, USDT, USDC, and DAI continue to drive activity, all with over $100 million changing hands in July. We’re beginning to see assets diversify however with WBTC, IMBTC, LINK, KNC, TUSD, SUSD, SNX, YFI, PAX, BAT, and LEND all trading millions of dollars per asset in July.
🗺 Ecosystem News
In addition to rampant trading activity there was plenty of technology focused activity across the ecosystem this month:
- The July Ecosystem Developer Meeting recording is now available on YouTube. Topics this month included the new Exchange Proxy contract, Request-for-quote liquidity, and 0x Mesh GraphQL API. There was also a showcase of Augur v2 by Paul Gebheim from the Augur team.
- Recordings from the Matcha team’s appearance at Remote Crypto Con are now available on YouTube. Chris Kalani ran through the UX approach they took whilst John Johnson gave some insight into the tech behind Matcha.
- ZEIP-79 was voted on, approved, and released. This ZEIP responded to the issue of rising gas prices by decreasing the protocol fee multiplier which drives protocol fees collected through every 0x v3 trade. The decreased multiplier should help incentivise increased activity despite high gas costs.
- The core team also launched a $100,000 bug bounty targeted at the Exchange Proxy contract for finding critical security issues 🐛
We take security very seriously at 0x and have paid over $100,000 in previous bounties. We encourage all smart contract developers to take advantage of this opportunity.
- Augur V2 (which is partly built on top of 0x Mesh) was released to the public this month. Augur is a decentralized oracle and peer to peer protocol for prediction markets. Check out Paul’s showcase mentioned above if you’re not already familiar with them 👨🏼💻
- Also, a reminder that the 0x team also have a lot of open positions, especially in the software development space. If you’re interested in working with the team then check them out! — https://0x.org/about/jobs
🌵 0x Tracker Updates
No big updates for 0x Tracker this month but I’d like to provide a sneak preview of some upcoming functionality that I’ve been collaborating with the 0x core team on recently…
Networked liquidity has been a boon for the 0x ecosystem but introduces some new challenges with regard to how we understand drivers of activity. 0x Tracker has traditionally focused on relayers as the “exchanges” of the 0x ecosystem, however this concept is somewhat outdated now that orders can flow through many different parties in the ecosystem. It’s not uncommon to see liquidity originate from Uniswap, being relayed by 0x API, and consumed by Matcha. The idea of an “exchange” in this scenario doesn’t work well.
To begin solving this problem we’re introducing the concept of “Apps”. Apps in the 0x ecosystem facilitate the processing of a 0x order in some way, either by relaying the order or consuming the available assets. These include existing relayers but also apps like 1inch.exchange, DEX.AG, Defi Saver, Paraswap, Set Protocol and more, who consume 0x liquidity.
By analyzing the different pieces of metadata associated with trades we can attribute each trade with one or more apps. This gives a much better picture for how liquidity flows through the 0x ecosystem, and the types of use-cases that networked liquidity enables.
The new feature is still under development but we’ll keep you posted when it’s ready for prime-time. Watch this space 👀
🎬 Wrapping Up
That’s it for July, stay tuned for another update next month. If you enjoyed this update then consider subscribing to the newsletter to receive the monthly update direct to your inbox.
