dYdX - $DYDX Buybacks & $20M Surge Incentives: What You Need to Know
Perps DEX Trading Volumes, dYdX Performance, & More
Onchain trading has been one of the clearest examples of product-market fit in crypto, with DEX to CEX trading volume ratios increasing each year. DEX spot trading volumes peaked at 20% of CEXs. However, there is a lot more opportunity in decentralized perps, where decentralized protocols only see ~7.5% of the volumes that CEXs do.
As momentum in the decentralized perps space grows, existing platforms stand to gain. One of the top decentralized perps trading platforms, and one of the first to come to market, is dYdX. In April, dYdX processed ~$5.78B in volume or ~$190M per day.
In today’s edition, we’ll discuss dYdX’s recent initiatives and performance, what to expect from the protocol in Q2, and more…
Stay informed in the markets ⬇
Background on dYdX
In 2024, dYdX processed $270B+ in volume. In the past month, dYdX’s volumes have fallen ~68%. This is in line with most large perps trading protocols, including Hyperliquid, Jupiter, and Vertex, which have all seen volumes decline 50-60%+ in the past month.
This can best be explained by elevated volumes around Liberation Day and Trump’s tariff exemption announcement, which saw huge daily trading volumes. In the past 24 hours, dYdX has logged ~$174M in trading volume with $193M in open interest, a decline from the early April highs.
While volumes are down, dYdX had a lot of activity outside of direct perps trading. The team rolled out season 1 of the dYdX Surge launchpad campaign. This campaign will distribute $20M in dYdX across nine monthly seasons (April - December, 2025). Launched in collaboration with Chaos Labs, this program will distribute rewards to a wide range of traders using the following split:
Sophisticated takers (50%): rewards distributed according to fees paid
Retail takers (25%): rewards distributed to those using mobile or web app.
Activation (25%): rewards distributed to users of new features, returning users, stakers, and those participating in key markets.
$DYDX buybacks also began last month, with 25% of protocol revenue going toward these buybacks. dYdX allocates 100% of protocol revenue back to dYdX users and participants. The remaining 75% of protocol revenue, after accounting for token buybacks is also distributed to ecosystem stakeholders, paid out in $USDC:
25%: $DYDX buybacks
40%: $dYdX stakers
25%: Megavault
10%: treasury SubDAO
Protocol performance metrics were down in April, but the dYdX team rolled out some new key initiatives, namely $DYDX buybacks and season 1 of the Surge trading competition. Instant listings, which we detailed in our previous dYdX newsletter update, have progressed nicely. The platform now boasts 216 markets with 230 more permissionlessly launchable if there is demand. Clever initiatives and tokenomics upgrades combined with suitable market conditions can help to add momentum to the dYdX flywheel in the coming months.
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