Hey DEXTools community and DEXT Force!
As you may have noticed, the full public release of DEXTools has been up and running smoothly, and we have even added our first post-release feature, Multi-Swap. If you haven’t already, make sure to read the DEXT Force’s recent article explaining Multi-Swap and the Frontrunning Bot Tracker.
Today, rather than discussing new features, we want to focus on something much more fundamental. We want to tell you about the DEXTools vision, which is the guiding principle for our feature development and future growth. We will very shortly publish a more comprehensive version of this vision on our website. This DEXTools manifesto will itself be a precursor to a more substantive document to be released in the future.
The DEXTools vision
2020 has been a tumultuous year for humanity. Faced with a global economic, social and health crisis, the world needs solutions to the problems of wealth dilution, transactional frictions and a crisis of trust in traditional governance. DeFi is the obvious solution, presenting a compelling alternative to traditional finance and governance.
Decentralised exchanges (DEXs) are a major part of this story. Crypto trading has to date been dominated by activity on several major exchanges. This gives these exchanges tremendous power and exposes traders to a multitude of vulnerabilities and risks. Market manipulation, hacks, exchange-endorsed scams and moral hazard are commonly-known problems of centralised exchanges (CEXs). DEXs, on the other hand, are simple, decentralised and protected from the agency problem.
However, the simplicity of DEXs is also a major drawback for traders who are familiar with the tools and information available on CEXs. Without these, many traders would be lost and overwhelmed in the Cambrian explosion that is the DeFi space. Enter DEXTools, the first trading assistant for DEX traders. DEXTools equips traders with reliable and up-to-date information on transactions and liquidity pools, and provides valuable tools to analyse this information flexibly and in detail.
Yet DEXTools is much more than a trading assistant. As a platform and an ecosystem, it is the industry standard and the central hub for DeFi traders everywhere. These two concepts are the core principles of the DEXTools vision.
Principle 1: The DEXTools standard
As the world, the cryptosphere and DeFi underwent rapid changes in 2020, one thing remained constant — DEXTools was an innovator. We developed new features, reacted to market changes (such as our refocus to Uniswap) and evolved our products based on community feedback. Despite a myriad of copycat competitors, DEXTools still leads the industry in delivering the features that users want, and in bringing together the necessary data, personnel and infrastructure to support them. This holistic system of technology, human capital and capacity to deliver is what we call ‘the DEXTools standard’. And we want to share it with the industry.
The reason for this is simple. The world is calling for solutions to problems that have defined humanity until now. The crypto industry and DeFi in particular are primed to be such solutions. As perhaps the most developed component of the DeFi wave, DEX trading is a proof of concept of the broader solution. This means that, for the sake of DeFi and crypto, DEX trading must hold the line as a credible solution. Yet it is under constant attack by scammers, information asymmetries, copycat projects without purpose or integrity, and a range of other bad actors. DEXTools addresses these problems by empowering users with reliable information to make confident trading decisions. But we want to do more. So we have developed a public API for DEXTools and we are building and integrating partnerships to help solve these bigger problems.
The DEXTools standard will encompass an ecosystem of projects on the DEXTools platform that aim to bring DeFi to the mainstream. DEXTools will partner with promising up-and-coming projects to deliver innovative solutions to real-life problems. We bring to these partnerships our technical expertise, industry-leading data and full endorsement. DEXTools’ own public release is just the first step on this journey. We will continue to innovate and develop our products at full throttle, but we will also deliver innovative solutions to important problems through our carefully-selected partnerships.
Our recent partnerships exemplify this vision. We have partnered with YFDAI to bring trust, transparency and security to DeFi. YFDAI will launch SafeSwap, a DEX that will only list and support projects that have met multiple objective criteria of integrity. Our first sponsored project was Foresight, an innovative DAO-governed insurance provider that will protect customers from financial loss arising from scams and hacks. We recently partnered with Unitrade and Unilayer, two projects that aim to provide additional trading functionality in the DEX trading space. And we have many more agreed partnerships that we will announce soon.
If you have a promising project and the DEXTools vision appeals to you, please reach out to us to solve the world’s problems together. DEXTools was once a new project too and we remember how overwhelming it was to start out in this space. We are here to help you develop your potential together.
Principle 2: The central hub for DeFi traders everywhere
Crypto, and DeFi in particular, present a unique opportunity to democratise finance and governance. DEXTools wants to add to this space the democratisation of DEX trading, trading information and trading tools. While DEXTools is already the third largest referrer of traffic to Uniswap, we want to expand far beyond this. We want to make DeFi and DEX trading accessible to everyone, compatible with all DEXs and blockchains, and truly global. We aim to be the central hub for DeFi traders everywhere.
In this spirit, we will soon be opening official Telegram and WeChat communities for Chinese users, investors and partners. We have already lined up our official Chinese-language community admins and have multiple Chinese article translations ready to release soon. Expect to see much more happening in this space soon!
Our focus on community engagement exemplifies our commitment to being the central hub for DeFi traders everywhere. The DEXT Force is an incredible example of this. The DEXT Force is a community-driven group of currently about 100 members who support new users, the broader community and the DEXTools team, by providing technical guidance, spreading awareness of DEXTools, testing new features and providing valuable feedback. Give the DEXT Force a follow on Medium and Twitter to see what they’re up to next!
Next update
Thank you for giving us your valuable attention. We hope you are just as excited as we are about the future of crypto, DeFi and DEXTools.
Over the next few days, we aim to provide you with even more feature releases and an updated development roadmap. In the meantime, we will be working hard, innovating, and developing more features that you love.
As always, thank you for your incredible support. We are extremely grateful to have you onboard on this incredible journey. Until next time, take care and safe trading!
