Aurora DAO is out, IDEX is in!

Alex Wearn
IDEX
Published in
4 min readMay 7, 2019

Over the past 1.5 years we’ve built IDEX into the most successful dApp ever, with 2x the number of transactions as Cryptokitties, and recently surpassing Ether Delta for the most DEX trades of all time. IDEX has become synonymous with a secure, fast, peer-to-peer trading experience. At the same time the parent brand, Aurora DAO, has gained a limited following, led to analyst confusion, and created many annoying or awkward intros at conferences (Alex from Aurora DAO…we created IDEX).

We’ve learned to recognize when something isn’t working and move past it, and clearly the time is up on our parent/child brand strategy.

Starting today we’ll be retiring the Aurora brand and moving everything under IDEX. If you’re worried about changes to the underlying product offering, then don’t be. The long-term vision is staying the same, it will just hopefully come with a lot less confusion.

What does this mean for me?

Token Swap

To kick off the brand consolidation, the AURA token is being swapped for a new token called IDEX. The token swap is now live, and you can swap at your convenience. To learn more about the token swap and how to swap your tokens, please read the FAQ and swap guides below.

General Token swap FAQ

  • What is a token swap? What is the difference between AURA and IDEX? The IDEX token is an exact 1:1 mirror of the AURA token. IDEX token serves the exact same purpose as the AURA token, and no new functionality is being added.
  • How much IDEX is 1 AURA worth? 1 AURA is worth 1 IDEX. There are an equal number of IDEX tokens as there are AURA tokens, no details about the token supply are changing.
  • How long do I have to perform the token swap? The token swap has no end date. As long as Ethereum is still running, users will be able to swap AURA for IDEX at their leisure.
  • How does this impact AURA staking? At this time stakers can operate their nodes using either the AURA or IDEX tokens. The overlap period will last for 28 days, and if you swap during the overlap period you will not experience any staking downtime. After the 28 days are over, only IDEX tokens will be valid. Those who fail to swap during the overlap period must reincubate their IDEX tokens before they can begin staking again.
  • What happens to my AURA after the swap? When you swap your AURA for IDEX the AURA tokens are forever locked in the swap contract. This ensures that the total supply of IDEX + AURA is always equal to 1 billion tokens and that any remaining AURA can be redeemed for IDEX at any point in the future.
  • Will AURA and IDEX trade on IDEX at the same time? There will be a short overlap period of up to 48 hours where both AURA and IDEX will trade on IDEX. Traders on the AURA market are highly encouraged to swap their tokens now to help ensure that liquidity moves over swiftly.

IDEX Swap Instructions

Before you start

  1. AURA tokens must held in a wallet you control. Any AURA tokens deposited on IDEX must be withdrawn to your wallet. They cannot be in a third party wallet.
  2. Ensure you have enough ETH in this same wallet to pay the gas for the swap. We recommend at least 0.005 eth.

Initiating the Token Swap via the IDEX UI

  1. Go to https://idex.market/unlock, connect and unlock your AURA wallet.
  2. Navigate to the token swap tool page.
  3. Fill in the amount of AURA you would like to swap for IDEX. It is auto-populated with the amount of tokens currently in your wallet.
  4. Click “Start Swap” to initiate the swap. Note: Users with a software (e.g. Metamask) or hardware (e.g. Ledger) wallet need to manually approve 2 transactions. Users with a private key or keystore will have their transactions approved automatically.

Your IDEX tokens will be sent back to you at a 1:1 ratio. The AURA you sent is locked forever in the IDEX token contract. You can now deposit or stake your IDEX tokens! Learn more about staking IDEX tokens here.

Manual Swap Using MEW

Instructions to manually swap your AURA for IDEX tokens using MEW can be found here.

That’s it! It really is that easy to swap out your AURA for IDEX tokens!

Please stay tuned as we continue to consolidate the brand under IDEX and push forward with our new initiatives. If you have not yet setup an IDEX staking node we encourage you to learn more about how you can earn trade fees by supporting IDEX. Thanks for your continued support!

-IDEX

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