# EVEDEX vs dYdX, Opposite Routes to an On-Chain Trade Rev. 24 September 2026. Kept by Chain Sheet editors. ## Abstract EVEDEX vs dYdX is a split verdict. dYdX suits a trader who wants the order history itself on a chain and an account opened with an email address; EVEDEX suits size, with a median $18.7 million resting within 10 basis points against $829,432 on the dYdX book. Neither column wins on every property. Weights: Settlement and custody 30 · Measured book depth 25 · Round-trip taker cost 18 · Audit and incident record 15 · Markets and asset classes 12, fixed 22 September 2026, scored out of 12. Method: https://echoblock.org/how-we-score ## EVEDEX vs dYdX, property by property One row per property that changes what a trade costs or where the collateral waits. | Property | EVEDEX | dYdX | |---|---|---| | Score of 12 | 7.6 | 7.0 | | What reaches the chain | Position data, written once enough changes accumulate and on every withdrawal | Every match, committed to dYdX Chain by the validator set | | Where the book sits | In the venue's own matching engine, off-chain | In validators' in-memory books, inside consensus | | Settlement chain | Arbitrum | dYdX Chain, a Cosmos application chain | | Maker / taker at the entry tier | 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker | 0.010% maker / 0.050% taker | | Round trip on $10,000 | $9.00 | $10.00 | | Perpetual markets | 52 | 78, with 218 more in final settlement | | Contracts outside crypto | Tether Gold, silver, WTI crude, two currency pairs, five US stocks, one index, two pre-listing markets | WTI crude, silver and a gold token | | Maximum leverage on Bitcoin | 200x to $50,000 | 50x, 2% margin | | Margin mode | Cross only, posted in USDT | Cross, with a 2% initial margin fraction on Bitcoin | | Sign-in | Wallet signature | Wallet signature, or Google, Apple or an email address | | Identity documents to trade | None; deposits screened on-chain | None in the onboarding pages we read | | Exit without the operator | Not described in the documentation we read | Not described in the documentation we read | | Independent audits counted | Two, recorded by CertiK Skynet | Six, on the chain and its modules | | Public bug bounty | None listed | Up to $1,000,000 through Cantina, since 8 May 2026 | | Loss of user funds in 24 months | None found in the record we read | $462,097.79 identified for proposed compensation after the halt of 10 October 2025 | | Open interest, as each venue reports it | $704.9 million (22 September 2026) | $37.3 million (22 September 2026) | Facts read 18 September 2026 in each venue's own documents, market feed and terms. The open interest row is a return each venue makes about itself, carried by CoinMarketCap on 22 September 2026; the book rows are the house's own. Both columns go through the formula this site fixed on 22 September 2026. Every contract on this sheet is carried on margin, and margin is what a move the wrong way takes first. ## Order-book readings Both BTC books were polled on the same interval over the same window, so this is one measurement taken twice, not two venues quoting themselves. | Venue | Median spread | Resting within 10 bps | Impact, $10,000 | Impact, $100,000 | Impact, $1 million | Round trip on $10,000 | Snapshots | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | EVEDEX | 4.12 bps | $18.7 million | 2.06 bps | 2.06 bps | 2.72 bps | $9.00 | 124 | | dYdX | 1.11 bps | $829,432 | 2.89 bps | 7.03 bps | 11.17 bps | $10.00 | 124 | ## What separates them 1. Depth is the wide gap: $18.7 million against $829,432 resting within 10 basis points, so a $1 million market order would have paid 2.72 bps on one book and 11.17 bps on the other. 2. Cost is the narrow one: $9.00 against $10.00 on a $10,000 round trip, from taker rates of 0.045% and 0.050%. 3. Only one column leaves a trade-by-trade chain record; the other writes position data to Arbitrum in batches, and on each withdrawal. 4. dYdX carries both the bounty and the incident: up to $1,000,000 through Cantina, and $462,097.79 of trader losses identified for proposed compensation after the chain halt of 10 October 2025. ## 01 · EVEDEX — the side with resting size Score 7.6 of 12. EVEDEX is the hybrid of the pair, and what the design bought on the day we read it was the wider book — a median $18.7 million within 10 basis points of mid on BTC, at a spread of 4.12 bps [5]. It lists 52 perpetual contracts: 39 crypto pairs, Tether Gold, silver, WTI crude, two currency pairs, five US stocks, one index and two pre-listing markets, all on one cross-margin balance posted in USDT and all on a continuous schedule in the published trading terms [2]. Entry fees are 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker and the minimum deposit is 6 USDT. CertiK Skynet recorded two smart-contract audits and a project score of 94.36 (AAA) on 18 September 2026 [3]. - For: A median $18.7 million within 10 basis points, so a $1 million order would have paid 2.72 bps; 52 contracts spanning crypto, metals, oil, currencies, shares, an index and two pre-listing markets on one balance. - Against: Position data reaches Arbitrum in batches, so no chain record exists to audit an individual fill against; No public bug bounty was listed on CertiK Skynet on 18 September 2026, so an outside researcher has no paid route in; 52 contracts against 78, and no spot market behind them. - Not for: anyone whose first requirement is a published bounty programme, or a chain entry for each separate fill. ## 02 · [dYdX](https://www.dydx.xyz) — the side with a public record Score 7.0 of 12. dYdX commits every match to dYdX Chain, the Cosmos application chain it runs for the purpose. The first fee tier is 0.010% maker / 0.050% taker across 78 active markets — almost all crypto, with WTI crude, silver and a gold token among them — and 218 further markets already in final settlement [1]. An account opens with a wallet signature or with Google, Apple or an email address and stays self-custodial. Six audit reports cover the chain and its modules, and a bounty programme on Cantina has offered up to $1,000,000 for a critical report since 8 May 2026 [7]. On 10 October 2025 the chain stopped, and the oracle prices it restarted with were stale enough to leave $462,097.79 of trader losses identified for proposed compensation [4]. - For: Every match is committed to dYdX Chain, so the order history is a chain history a fill can be checked against; Up to $1,000,000 for a critical report through the Cantina programme, open to outside researchers. - Against: A median $829,432 within 10 basis points, so a $1 million market order would have paid 11.17 bps; A halt on 10 October 2025, then stale prices on the restart: $462,097.79 of trader losses identified for proposed compensation; Transfers and withdrawals are gated for 50 blocks after a chain outage of five minutes or more. - Not for: orders large enough to walk the book, or a trader who wants metals, currencies and share contracts on the same balance. ## One book in consensus, one book in an engine dYdX put the book itself into consensus. Every validator holds the resting orders in memory, the rotating block proposer matches them, and the match is committed to dYdX Chain, a Cosmos application chain of its own [1]. The record that comes out is public and replayable, and the price of it is that the venue's speed is the chain's speed and the validator set is the operator. EVEDEX went the other way. Orders meet in its own matching engine, and what Arbitrum is handed is position data — written when enough has changed to be worth writing, and once more when a balance leaves [2]. The chain record is periodic rather than continuous; what the design buys is the book on the other side of this sheet. Neither venue documents a withdrawal a trader can force without the party running it, so on the day that matters both depend on someone answering. ## Which one wins, scenario by scenario Size first. A $1 million market order would have paid 2.72 bps against 11.17 bps, and at $100,000, 2.06 bps against 7.03 bps [5]. Above a few thousand dollars the book settles the bill. An auditable history second. Only dYdX writes each fill into a block, so a desk that has to reconcile trades against something other than the venue's own report has one column here. Breadth third. Metals, oil, two currency pairs, share contracts, an index and two pre-listing markets sit on one cross-margin balance inside 52 contracts; the other side lists 78 markets, three of them commodities and the rest crypto [1]. Getting in without a browser wallet last. dYdX opens a self-custodial account with Google, Apple or an email address [1], where the alternative asks for a wallet signature. ## Why the published totals are not the argument CoinMarketCap listed $37.3 million of open interest for dYdX and $704.9 million for EVEDEX on 22 September 2026 [6]. Both are the venue's own figure, repeated by an aggregator that never sees the orders behind it. Resting depth is harder to manufacture, because a quote that is posted can be hit, which is why the depth criterion here runs on books we poll ourselves. ## Quoted from the sources > "Validators are responsible for storing orders in an in-memory orderbook (i.e. off chain and not committed to consensus), gossipping transactions to other validators, and producing new blocks for dYdX Chain through the consensus process." — dYdX documentation, architecture overview, 18 September 2026. https://docs.dydx.xyz/concepts/architecture/overview > "An off-chain order book (Matcher) system manages buy and sell orders outside the blockchain." — EVEDEX documentation, off-chain order book, 18 September 2026. > "User position data is written to the blockchain after sufficient changes have accumulated." — EVEDEX documentation, on-chain settlement, 18 September 2026. > "All subaccount transfers and withdrawals will also be gated for 50 blocks if a 5+ minute chain outage occurs." — dYdX documentation, withdrawal limits, 18 September 2026. https://docs.dydx.xyz/concepts/trading/limits/withdrawal-limits ## How this sheet was compiled The documentary columns — rate card, contract list, leverage ladder, custody mechanics, audit reports — come off each venue's own pages as they stood on 18 September 2026. The book column is ours, read from 20 September 2026 into 21 September 2026, a reading every ten minutes; no account opened, no order sent. The weights behind all 2 marks were fixed on 22 September 2026: [how we rate](/how-we-score). A document is not behaviour: settlement, forced withdrawals and audit history are entered as the venue states them. The cost column is the published entry-tier rate, crediting no volume tier, staking discount or referral deal. One market stands behind depth — the BTC perpetual. ## Sources 1. dYdX documentation and market feed — chain architecture, fee tiers, active markets and margin fractions. https://docs.dydx.xyz/concepts/trading/rewards (18 September 2026) 2. EVEDEX documentation and published trading terms, named in text rather than linked. (18 September 2026) 3. CertiK Skynet, project profile — audits, team verification and the project score. https://skynet.certik.com/projects/evedex (18 September 2026) 4. dYdX, October 2025 chain incident review and compensation update. https://www.dydx.xyz/blog/october-2025-dydx-chain-incident-review-community-update (18 September 2026) 5. Chain Sheet measurement log, BTC perpetual order books polled every ten minutes. (18 September 2026) 6. CoinMarketCap, decentralized derivatives ranking. https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/dex/?type=derivatives (22 September 2026) 7. Cantina, the dYdX bug bounty programme. https://cantina.xyz/bounties/83b38645-7554-43c3-88d4-cac2910650b7 (18 September 2026) ## FAQ ### Is EVEDEX better than dYdX? Neither, overall. On the formula used across this sheet the two sit 7.6 and 7.0 of 12, a gap of about one criterion. Depth and the breadth of the contract list point one way; a trade history committed to a chain, a bounty programme and email sign-in point the other. ### is dydx or evedex cheaper for a 10k round trip At the entry tier, $10.00 against $9.00 on a $10,000 round trip, from taker rates of 0.050% and 0.045%. Slippage is the larger number: that same order met 2.89 bps of price impact on one book and 2.06 bps on the other in our snapshots. ### Where does dYdX actually record a trade? On dYdX Chain, the Cosmos application chain it runs itself. Validators keep the order book in memory, off chain, and the block proposer commits each match into a block, so a fill can be replayed from the chain afterwards rather than taken on trust. Deposits arrive as bridged USDC. ### What chain does EVEDEX settle on? Arbitrum, a layer 2 on Ethereum. The matching runs off-chain in the venue's own engine, so what the chain receives is position data — written when enough has changed to be worth writing, and again as a balance leaves. dYdX takes the opposite route and runs an application chain of its own, where each match is a block entry. ### Which of the two has the deeper order book? EVEDEX, by a wide margin in our readings: a median $18.7 million resting within 10 basis points of mid on BTC against $829,432 on dYdX, 124 snapshots each, 18 September 2026. A $1 million market order would have paid 2.72 bps against 11.17 bps. ### How many markets does dYdX list? 78 active perpetual markets on 18 September 2026, counted in its own market feed, with 218 further markets already in final settlement. Almost all are crypto; WTI crude, silver and a gold token are the exceptions. The other column lists 52 contracts spread across six asset classes. ### Does dYdX require KYC? Nothing in the onboarding pages we read on 18 September 2026 asked for identity documents before trading, and an account opens with Google, Apple or an email address. Access is still closed in several places, and for each venue the terms of use are where that list is set out in full. ### Does dYdX list anything other than crypto? Three commodity contracts in the market feed we read on 18 September 2026: WTI crude, silver and a gold token. There are no share contracts, no currency pairs and no index. Metals, oil, two currency pairs, five US stocks, one index and two pre-listing markets sit on the other side of this sheet. ### is dydx still worth using after the chain halt That depends on the weight you give one incident. On 10 October 2025 the chain stopped; its oracle prices were stale when it restarted, and $462,097.79 of trader losses were identified for proposed compensation. Against that sit six audit reports, a bounty of up to $1,000,000 and an order history anyone can replay. ### what leverage can i get on bitcoin on each The documented ladders read 200x to $50,000 on one side and 50x, 2% margin on the other, both on BTC. A headline multiple narrows as the position grows, so the notional limit printed beside it decides more than the number in front of it does. ## Corrections Chain Sheet editors, 24 September 2026. Corrections: sheet@echoblock.org. Publication of this sheet is bought.