v4 Milestones

Introduction

dYdX is committed to creating the best product and establishing the gold standard in DeFi. To that end, we will provide periodic updates on what we are planning for the rollout of the new dYdX v4 open-source blockchain software (“dYdX Chain”) and solicit feedback and input at certain junctures.

We’ve split the development of the blockchain into several milestones so that we can test early-and-often, allowing us to validate our assumptions, find bottlenecks, fix bugs, and gather product feedback.

Each of our milestones contains a set of features to be built. Each milestone also specifies the release of a new software, or a significant evolution of an existing software. This serves to expand the scope and quality of integration testing that we will be able to perform.

Planned Milestones

During each milestone we will add a suite of automated unit and integration tests, as well as use telemetry to identify opportunities for optimization. We also plan to continuously build both a graphical front-end interface as well as an indexing service that can store and serve historical data more efficiently than a default full-node.

In addition, at the completion of each milestone, we plan to release a major update to the software.

Below we detail the major features to be built for each milestone as well as the associated software release. As the project progresses, we may need to make adjustments to certain projected milestones, and will keep the community apprised.

Milestone 1 - Developer Testnet - Complete!

This milestone was to allow for basic trading on the blockchain so that we could start testing as early as possible. The main features of this milestone were:

Orderbook & Matching-Engine
Margining System
JavaScript Client
Telemetry & Monitoring

As part of this milestone, we have created an automated way to spin up a developer testnet consisting of multiple validator nodes across multiple continents that allows us to stress-test the system in a higher-latency environment.

Milestone 2 - Internal Testnet - 2022 Q3

This milestone is to complete all of the basic functionality needed for the software to power an exchange. The main features of this milestone are:

Fees
Liquidations
Oracle Price Updates
Static Funding Rates
Token Transfers

This milestone will also take the developer testnet and transform it into a more stable testnet with a larger number of validator nodes. This testnet will still remain internal to dYdX, but will allow for more robust testing by developers, including those building end-user products.

Milestone 3 - Private Testnet - 2022 Q4

This milestone is to complete more advanced features. The main features of this milestone are:

Validator Staking
Dynamic Funding Rates
Key-Permissioning & Access Management
Advanced Order Types
Documentation for Validators
Indexing Service

This milestone will see the creation of a private testnet that’s external to dYdX. We will work with a limited set of partners to ensure that the documentation and setup for running validator nodes and full nodes is as easy and fully-featured as possible.

If you are interested in participating as a validator in this testnet, please fill out this form.

Milestone 4 - Public Testnet - 2023 Q1

This milestone is to build the rest of the functions that can be added on to a non-production chain and to test on a publicly available network. The main features of this milestone are:

On-Chain Governance
Token Emissions & Rewards
Wallet Compatibility & Onboarding

This milestone will see the evolution of the private testnet into a public testnet that allows anyone to trade testnet tokens as well as run validators and full-nodes.

Milestone 5 - Mainnet - 2023 Q2

This milestone is for polish, optimizations, and to build any other necessary features for the open-source release of our mainnet software. The main features of this milestone are:

IBC Connections to other Blockchains
Stablecoin Integration

Post-Mainnet

If mainnet is deployed, there could be three parallel networks:

Internal Testnet
Public Testnet
Mainnet

This will allow for future testing of features and upgrades in real-world environments.

Progress so Far

As previously mentioned, we have fully completed Milestone 1 including stress testing our Developer Network and have achieved 500 order placements per second and 50 trades per second. We plan to continue to optimize this over future milestones.

We are now in the middle of working on Milestone 2, and will release another update after completion.

Conclusion

We’re extremely excited to continue building out the dYdX Chain and plan to release updates in the form of blog posts for each future milestone.

Legitimacy and Disclaimer

Crypto-assets can be highly volatile and trading crypto-assets involves risk of loss, particularly when using leverage. Investment into crypto-assets may not be regulated and may not be adequate for retail investors. Do your own research and due diligence before engaging in any activity involving crypto-assets.

dYdX is a decentralised, disintermediated and permissionless protocol, and is not available in the U.S. or to U.S. persons as well as in other restricted jurisdictions. The dYdX Foundation does not operate or participate in the operation of any component of the dYdX Chain’s infrastructure.

The dYdX Foundation’s purpose is to support the current implementation and any future implementations of the dYdX protocol and to foster community-driven growth in the dYdX ecosystem.

The dYdX Chain software is open-source software to be used or implemented by any party in accordance with the applicable license. At no time should the dYdX Chain and/or its software or related components be deemed to be a product or service provided or made available in any way by the dYdX Foundation. Interactions with the dYdX Chain software or any implementation thereof are permissionless and disintermediated, subject to the terms of the applicable licenses and code. Users who interact with the dYdX Chain software (or any implementations thereof) will not be interacting with the dYdX Foundation in any way whatsoever. The dYdX Foundation does not make any representations, warranties or covenants in connection with the dYdX Chain software (or any implementations and/or components thereof), including (without limitation) with regard to their technical properties or performance, as well as their actual or potential usefulness or suitability for any particular purpose, and users agree to rely on the dYdX Chain software (or any implementations and/or components thereof) “AS IS, WHERE IS”.

Nothing in this post should be used or considered as legal, financial, tax, or any other advice, nor as an instruction or invitation to act by anyone. Users should conduct their own research and due diligence before making any decisions. The dYdX Foundation may alter or update any information in this post in the future at its sole discretion and assumes no obligation to publicly disclose any such change. This post is solely based on the information available to the dYdX Foundation at the time it was published and should only be read and taken into consideration at the time it was published and on the basis of the circumstances that surrounded it. The dYdX Foundation makes no guarantees of future performance and is under no obligation to undertake any of the activities contemplated herein.