ApeX Pro growing as a multichain derivatives DEX

0:01I'm Ashton Addison from Block West capital for investment pitch media and today on the Crypto Coin Show we have Tecla the head of Business Development from Apex protocol Tecla welcome to the show and thank you for taking the time Ashton hi thank you very much thank you for having me it's a pleasure being here likewise I'm excited to dive into the decentralized exchange derivatives

0:22markets and everything that Apex has been working on it looks like you know a refreshment to The Exchange world of cryptocurrencies and derivatives so thank you for all the work that you and your team have done so far and I'm excited to dive into the details let's just kick it off from the top to start for those who aren't familiar with Apex on you know a little bit of the overview

0:42and the focus of what is Apex Pro and then we'll dive into all the details great thank you so my name is I'm head of Business Development at Apex protocol a little bit about product our product Apex Pro is a non-custodial non-kyc derivatives decks built on a decentralized and permissionless Apex protocol and it offers access to high performance Perpetual contracts on an order book

1:06model while operating within the web 3 social training ecosystem a little bit about about our history Apex launched on the main net officially in November of 2022 and since then we have become one of the most well adopted dexes on the market with more than 11 000 unique users and trading volume exceeding 5 billion wow it should be noted yeah that Apex is a buy a bit Launchpad

1:30project it was incubated by Davian labs and is backed by such names as dragonfly Capital jump trading Chronos Marana Ventures Etc it can actually be accessed directly from by bid because it is integrated on by bit and the platform is extremely user friendly very good and use it's intuitive it's high performance privacy preserving secure

1:56all of these aspects being sort of underpinned by our integration of Stark X which is stockware's layer 2 scalability engine and sort of to look forward a little bit Apex will soon be wading into the Waters of web 3 social trading as well giving users the opportunity to meet their svts the soul bound tokens which will represent their identities basically on

2:16our platform minting and burning sbts as well as sort of tailoring of the sbts will be completely up to the user's discretion and done entirely through smart contracts so that way we're going to be avoiding the pitfalls and limitations and sort of restrictions that we currently like sort of know about copy trading on centralized exchanges giving more Liberty and

2:37control over their data and identity to the users themselves wow incredible and you mentioned there that you know Apex was really launching around November 22 from what I recall that was like the bottom of the market and there was a lot of fear in the market and I'm curious and it sounds like the numbers so far are are really great I'm curious on how that start was and

2:58you know was there any fear or like how did you guys start so successfully in such a dire time it was exactly two weeks after the horrible implosion that we that we all witnessed in a way yes it was the market sentiment at the time I mean we all remember it was it was really negative there was a lot of the distrust and sort of sort of

3:25The you know stress going around and sort of reverberating throughout the entire Market that being said I think the events of the 2022 really brought forward the important issue of self-custody something that I mean it was talked about but I think it has really come to the Forefront self-custody what it means what it means actually to have the custody of

3:47your own funds which what we mean when we say your keys your coins or not your keys not your coins I should say so I think we were all quite anxious when we were we were launching on the Main Event in November at the end of November but I do have to say our trading volume during the first 24 hours while it was still in the beta stage it was

4:07averaging about 3 million per day and then we launched and it suddenly shot up to 60 million overnight so there was definitely that interest to make that switch I guess from centralized exchanges onto the centralized exchanges that and especially APAC that's offering very much offering sort of like Bridging the Gap between centralized and decentralized exchanges and in terms of

4:27the interface in terms of usability in terms of sort of efficiency it's very similar to centralized exchanges while at the same time offering privacy you know trustlessness permissionlessness non-keyness that the centralized exchanges are known for so I guess that's sort of like perfect cocktail really did the thing and we did see interest expressed in the trading volume

4:52sort of really exponentially increase overnight and throughout you know the following following months following weeks we did see interest and sort of like Trader numbers increase on our platform more and more Traders are using it as the time goes by and we'd love to see it because right now definitely it's not the you know the Bliss it's not a

5:14you know the best time still in the crypto Market it's not the spring but so far so good yeah no I think it might have just been that perfect solution I see you know a Narrative of moving towards more decentralized exchanges and it could have been the perfect time you know people that they saw you know FTX might have been the nail in the coffin for

5:39centralized exchanges however we're still seeing you know buy bits doing well binance has the majority of volume and I think there's a lot of people that are still for one reason or another not moving into decentralized exchanges yet and one of the factors is you know the usability and the easiness of it but also the performance as well and I'm

6:00curious on the performance of Apex as a DEX compared to a centralized exchange it sounds like you guys have you know the scalability speed how does that compare as a decentralized exchange to you know what people are used to with centralized exchanges right so a in terms of sheer speeds processing speeds it's one of the fastest taxes out there when it comes to you know

6:26transactions the protocol actually processes has the ability to process 10 trades and a thousand order placements and cancellations per second all of these I mean again this is goes back to the scalability engines and them allow like like Stark X allowing us to scale those Solutions and manage you know execution improving separately onto different change which

6:47is really what boosts the performance of Apex in this case while at the same time ensuring that it's a secure is trusted guaranteed to be privacy preserving which all of this happens through the integration of DK proofs and validiums and Palladium I should say yeah so in that sense like it does incredibly well in terms of performance speeds we

7:11haven't had one complaint from our users when it comes to transaction processing speeds I do have to comment on like why like it's interesting isn't it like with everything that has happened we're still seeing of course there are a lot of traders that still use more like larger centralized exchanges and that definitely has to do with I guess the history of use as well

7:32like once you start using a certain exchange I guess there is a sort of loyalty to keep in mind but also I mean I already mentioned the idea of self-custody and I think as much as all of us might think that this is the idea that should be very widespread and sort of like no-nonsense idea of like of course keep your money so a self-custodial I should say it's your

7:51custodial wallet why you're keeping is on an exchange which as we have seen in 2022 is probably not the most secure place to deposit your funds or keep your funds I should say right but there is still complacency and there is still I think a little bit of help to go over as far as the idea of sole custody is concerned fortunately enough

8:12I mean we are I think approaching time where this is not going to be sort of a roadblock their you know technology and like in Innovations like account obstruction that are going to make it so much easier for users to adopt self-custodial wallets because I think one of the biggest problems in issues when when it comes to adopting self-custodial wallets

8:31is that people don't trust themselves to keep those keys safe so you know Innovations like account distraction will hopefully remove that one roadblock and hopefully once that sort of hurdle is overcome we will see even greater adoption and greater movement you know between centralized and decentralized exchanges no it's a great point and I feel like there is some

8:54hesitancy of learning something new or taking extra steps exactly and I'm curious with the self-custody wallets when you're trading on apex as the Dax how does that work can you use any kind of wallets or do you have to use specific self-custody wallets that are approved by Apex when you want to trade your funds so there are eight options right now on

9:18apex and we're constantly adding new options there's also wallet connect available on apex so we're giving our users as much of flexibility as possible we do want to be welcoming to users of all walks of life one of the reasons why we opted to make this an order book model is exactly that exactly what you said we sometimes users are usually prefer to use the platform and the

9:40interface that they are very used to seeing that they can navigate easily because they're familiar with it so our interface is also welcoming like if you look at the interface and since we are so closely tied with pivot if you have ever used buy bit as your centralized exchange and know the interface at all then you will have no trouble at all transitioning onto onto Apex but now how

10:01it functions like in terms of like yeah so like how do you how do you trade on apex right so you go on the exchange the only thing that you have to do in order to trade on apex is you just connect your wallet you select you literally click the connect wallet button and then it gives you options whichever what you want to connect whether that's you know

10:19metamask or whether that's by this web3 wallet for example that we just recently integrated you connect to it you provide signatures and that's it you're you're connected and you can immediately start depositing funds on the exchange but again even when you deposit funds those funds remain yours because you hold the keys it's just a wallet interacting with the exchange in

10:41order to facilitate the transaction that you would want to you know conduct on an exchange so we even when you are sort of con you know making a transaction or placing an order when you're depositing funds in order to do all of that on apex you still remain as a user the sole custodian of those funds so for example even if for example Apex word two for

11:02whatever reason go offline you would still be able to trigger a process that would you know get your funds back into your wallet so it's completely there is no way for the exchange itself to in any way mismanage funds simply because we take no custodianship we take no keys from you those remain with you by the simple feature of you connecting your

11:24self-custodial wallet and trading through that on apex wow that's great to know and yeah I know metamask is simple enough for a lot of people I know there's already been using it so and to have eight other options is great to know now one thing I'm curious about with the limitations of decentralized exchanges is this notion that we're moving towards multi-chain future and

11:49interoperability and I'm curious how Apex as a DEX fits into that with multi-chain support and supporting multiple blockchains so in terms of multi-chain So currently we have four chains where multi-chain decks so you can we have polygon DSC ethereum and arbitrum so you can use any of these four chains so like currently what they do right now what you can do

12:14through these four chains we allow cross-chain deposits and withdrawals you can also you know do like cross margin trading between these like four chains we also launched taking program in January mid-January but now we can stick on arbitrim as well we only recently just launched that so we're trying to adapt and develop and integrate the multi-chain technology as much as

12:37possible again in order to this is all about inclusion this is all about sort of integrating people with different preferences into this one ecosystem and making it as inclusive as possible and not sort of barring or providing like artificial barriers for entry for our users okay that's great to know and one of the other parts that's related to that was a

12:59big pain point with you know sort of decentralized exchanges especially with unit swap on ethereum was that when the network was congested and some of the transaction fees were fifty hundred dollars it was getting crazy I'm guessing you know if you're using arbitrum or some of these other layer 2 networks then that doesn't impact you know can people make small trades on

13:19apex and not be impacted by a larger transaction fees so our fees are maker taker fee model and you know hence you depending on like the trade place you pay maker taker fees maker fees are set at 0.02 intake reviews are set at 0.05 they're also indoor in a sort of an indirect way we're also rebating part of the page fees to back to our users through one of

13:47the biggest ways that we are doing this is through our trade to earn program which we kicked off right as we launched in November in 2022 and it's an ongoing program it's going to go on until November of 2023. The only prerequisite in order to participate is to just trade and then in weekly increments using a cob Douglas function special formula you get you know which you can

14:08like track the sort of balance of your rewards on our page you get rewarded with one of our tokens which is the banner token the rewards token which you can immediately swap into usdc or if you'd like you can and liquidity to bana usdc liquidity pool which will grant you LP tokens and the more LP tokens you hold the higher your binary rewards are in the subsequent

14:29Weekly epochs or you can just keep you know hold on to those binary words and because bana was minted from Apex at the end of trade to earn you can redeem Apex at a program basis basically the longer you hold on to bana the better the exchange rate back into Apex becomes at the end of end of trade your own campaign so yeah trading fees are quite low you know

14:51relatively speaking comparative to the market and in addition to that we're also sort of incentivizing our users to trade on apex through programs like traitor and in addition to many other incentives that we have incentive programs that we have run previously and they're also currently we're holding a competition a trading competition through which we're also trying to

15:09encourage our customers to try Apex to trade on apex to show us their trading skills it's ranked by P L percentage and their word School adds up to adds up adds up to 100 hundred thousand dollars so yeah we're trying to be one of the biggest things for our exchange I think is in our platform is we love giving back to our community and we love you know seeing their feedback

15:33hearing their feedback when we currently we have you know 11 pairs I think 12 pairs already and we're adding more trading pairs as the time as time goes on and when we were adding new pairs we actually ran a Twitter poll to see what our community wanted to see on the exchange so we're building trying to build a community that's very involved with Apex and we are

15:54also doing our part in giving back to the community not just hearing their feedback not you know not just them doing the you know the simple thing of like coming and trading on apex but actually building a community that is symbiotic and sort of like hears each other on both fronts so you know that's good to hear and I'm glad the community is involved in that yeah

16:14I feel like as a decentralized exchange you should have that kind of that Democratic process to allow people to see definitely yeah definitely and since we're sort of on the way to launch a governance module as well by which with the you know the holders of Apex token which is we know our native governance token will have governance rights

16:36Once there but once the governance module launches we are leading up to that but we are still even though there is no governance module yet we are acting in this theory of that in the spirit of that democracy in the spirit of that Community governance that we're gonna you know integrate really soon great and you know with the launch so timely of Apex

16:59Right when you know the centralized exchanges were having issues what do you do you think there's going to be more catalysts of you know millions of traders that are using centralized exchanges moving over to decentralized exchanges you know and what do you think will be the next big thing where you know all of a sudden millions of people are sort of rushing into dex's like Apex

17:19right so I hope that the thing that causes a lot of people to rush to Dex is not going to be something that's going to break the sector I hope it's not sort of like a cataclysmic event I very much hope that it's more something in terms of just an educational sort of like a paradigm shift because I mean when you think about it the Cornerstone of crypto

17:41is expressed so much better in a decentralized in the D5 space crypto was never from its Inception it was supposed to be decentralized it was supposed to be privacy preserving it was supposed to be trustless permissionless the whole sort of like those are the cornerstones of crypto sector as a whole yeah we have centralized exchanges which obviously like they

18:03made crypto adoption so much easier and they sort of like made crypto mainstream but when we talk about the Cornerstone of this sector and like what made this sector sort of what the sector is built on those are the values that are exemplified by defy exemplified by exemplified by an exchange like Apex so I think that the probably the Catalyst to transitioning I mean we are

18:27definitely already seeing sort of the shift towards Texas on the market and that was obviously perpetuated by what happened last year what happened in November but I think along with that comes also more of an sort of like an educational movement where people are getting more interested you said it I mean it's really hard to suddenly especially in this sector where trust is

18:48such an issue and like where you know you have to obtain a user's trust in order to be able to survive in order to be able to develop in this sector right so I think what's going to nudge people even further into the direction of the fine direction of Texas is sort of like an educational movement that we're seeing happening right now where people are getting interested to learn

19:07more about decentralized World decentralized Finance how it functions what props it up what are the guarantees like how do you guarantee privacy security that again self-custody what it means I spoke so much about it already but like this is a big topic I think that's going going to be even like highlighted even further going forward like what are

19:25the guarantees how how do you like ensure the speed and the scalability objects it so that they can match up and maybe one day even surpass those of the centralized exchanges that we know today so I think it's probably going to be sort of this interest driven by events such as you know the implosion in November paired with simply just development of you know Tech development

19:48and Innovation that happens so fast in this sector so yeah well the more roadblocks are removed from the you know the path of the users The Wider the adoption is going to be and I think that's sort of the pathway that the entirety of like the device sector is currently on thankfully yeah yeah it's a great perspective Tecla and I think combining

20:08that with multi-chain and layer two and you know exactly like a lot of wallet options it's just going to make it really easy for people not to use you know when they see that it's just as easy except there's no risk of losing all your funds from some centralized crash they're going to want to exactly things like Apex yeah exactly that's that's what we hope

20:28and now it sounds like your team's doing really well so far since the launch you know and looking at the current market conditions they could obviously be better I'm hoping the rest of 23 and 24 just proves positive for the whole Market as well fingers crossed I'm sure that you guys have more planned for expansion and growing the products and things like that what can

20:54we expect for you know 2023 whether the first half or throughout this year in what are the next big things to come to be released on apex right so in the first quarter as I mentioned we launched a you know staking program that was one of the one big upgrade that our community was really looking forward to so that was sort of like the big event that happened in

21:14the first quarter going forward one of the biggest plans that we have for 2023 is and I mentioned this already we want to host the soul bound token minting event at this end of the second quarter of 2023 and allow our traders to you know mint their sbts again to reiterate those sbts are going to represent the user's digital identities and users will have complete control

21:34over building that identity through trades there are patterns all of that is going to be encapsulated in this SVT which if they would so like they can also then burn through a smart contracts again Apex will not be keeping any of the data will not have access to any of the data and will not be able to have sort of control control over it so hopefully the minting event is going

21:56to be a schedule that's going to happen at the end of the second quarter of 2023 then throughout the third quarter we would hopefully be seeing the you know launching of social trading tools so that our users can take full advantage of social trading on apex and lastly by the end of 2023 we would also like to introduce spot trading on Apex Pro it's also something that our

22:17users have been sort of clamoring for so we're looking forward to developing those features and adding them to the to the to the platform yeah awesome looking forward to it and if the people want to follow along with these updates when they come out or maybe there's a community or just to learn more about the platform before they start trading what's the best way to

22:38stay in touch with everybody that's using Apex we have a very very course I think the best way to sort of keep up with Apex is to follow us on our Twitter account where we post this is the first place where all the news and updates get posted we also have a very active Discord community so Discord users please check out our Discord it's incredibly you know communal it's

23:04very sort of friendly everybody is very you know involved with the process and the voting sometimes takes place there we have a bunch of quests that you can complete it's all very active and various there's a lot of camaraderie on Discord as well for all the sort of like official links and also I mean first and foremost to access Apex you can visit

23:23apex.exchange that way you can also access our get book if you want to sort of dig into more of a technical aspect of things or you can also access the blog which details sort of history of Apex really every single upgrade we've done Integrations and collaborations all of those things everything is detailed in our blog so it's also a very nice resource to see sort of where we started

23:43and how far how far we have come so and yeah I mean I website really is the sort of the main gateway to all the all the other channels so if you just go to apex.exchange you will be able to access our social media our Discord the blog the get book The Exchange itself that you should connect your wallet and trade on so yeah go to go to it go to apex.exchange amazing thank you so much

24:05Tecla and I will leave all those links socials The Exchange trading everything in the description box below I appreciate you coming on and explaining all of this about decentralized exchanges the future of trading all the best with these updates moving forward with Apex I'm looking forward to the soul bound part that I'm gonna check out right when it gets released as well

24:25so let's definitely follow up in the near future we would be very glad to do so thank you very much thank you for having me Ashton foreign