By Hannah Lang
(Reuters) – One of the leading decentralized cryptocurrency trading platforms, dYdX, is preparing to enter the U.S. market by the end of the year, part of a transition to a derivatives-focused exchange that was previously unavailable to U.S. users, dYdX’s chairman told Reuters in an interview.
Unlike centralized exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken that act as intermediaries between buyers and sellers, decentralized platforms like dYdX aim to eliminate middlemen and allow users to transact directly on a blockchain network, which powers cryptocurrencies.
DYdX specializes in perpetual contracts, a type of derivative that allows traders to speculate on the price of an asset without actually owning it and, unlike traditional futures contracts, has no expiration date. Total trading volume recently surpassed $1.5 trillion since inception, the San Francisco-based company said.
The platform plans to expand its offering by bringing spot trading of solana and other related cryptocurrencies to the United States by the end of the year, said Eddie Zhang, president of dYdX.
“It’s very important for us as a platform to have something available in the United States, because I think that hopefully represents the direction that we’re trying to move in,” Zhang said.
DYdX’s move follows President Donald Trump’s embrace of the cryptocurrency industry this year, which led to the dismissal of a series of lawsuits against major crypto platforms and a shift by financial regulators to create specialized rules to accommodate digital assets.
Upon entering the United States, dYdX plans to cut its trading fees in half “across the board,” to between 50 and 65 basis points, Zhang said.
Perpetual contracts will not be available in the United States, but dYdX hopes that U.S. regulators will eventually provide guidance for decentralized platforms to offer these products, Zhang said.
In a joint statement last month from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the agencies indicated that they would consider allowing crypto perpetual contracts to be traded on regulated platforms in the United States.
(Reporting by Hannah Lang in New York; editing by Matthew Lewis)
