The dYdX Foundation’s 2025 Ecosystem Annual Report presented a deliberate strategic shift: the protocol moved from trading-driven volatility to building institutional-grade liquidity and a predictable revenue architecture. The report tied that pivot to concrete metrics—$1.55 trillion in cumulative volume and a set of tokenomic and technical changes intended to lock in market share.
The report showed all-time cumulative trading volume surpassed $1.55 trillion, with on-chain perpetual volumes approaching broader industry-scale figures. After a mid-year consolidation that reduced Q2 volume to roughly $16.0 billion, dYdX recorded a rebound: Q4 2025 was its strongest quarter at $34.3 billion, a recovery the foundation linked to targeted liquidity programs and fee incentives.
At the same time, the DYDX token experienced severe price volatility. The report noted a March peak of $4.52 that gave way to roughly $0.126 by October—figures the foundation summarized as a 91.33% annual decline and a 72% loss measured to october 21.
To counter supply pressure, governance approved a buyback program allocating 75% of net protocol revenue to systematic repurchases; repurchased tokens are staked to support the dYdX Chain’s proof-of-stake security. As of enero de 2026, the foundation reported 8.46 million DYDX had been repurchased and staked (valued at $1.72 million at purchase), while the dYdX v4 chain had generated $64.7 million in fees and distributed $48 million in staking rewards.
Execution, distribution and operational changes
The protocol launched native Solana spot trading in 2025, expanding beyond its historic perpetuals focus to offer unified spot-and-derivatives workflows. Market listings grew to 386 markets, a cited ~200% increase in asset availability.
The report credited integrations with CoinRoutes, CCXT, Foxify Trade and Crypto.com, plus order-routing innovations such as Order Entry Gateway Services and Designated Proposers, for materially improving execution quality and lowering slippage for large trades.
Infrastructure moves included migrating key systems to bare-metal servers, which reduced monthly operating costs from $35.000 to $6.000 while improving latency and consistency. Incentives such as the $20 million dYdX Surge Program were credited with boosting affiliate-channel volume by $17 billion, and UX experiments—like the Pocket Pro Bot on Telegram—were used to lower onboarding friction for programmatic and social traders.
Charles d’Haussy, CEO of the dYdX Foundation, framed the agenda as building “durable foundations across execution, distribution, and governance for sustained participation and long-term alignment,” a line the report used to link product, operations and governance reforms.
Investors will watch whether sustained buybacks, staking flows and execution improvements translate into durable liquidity and price stabilization through 2026. If those mechanisms continue to scale, dYdX’s thesis of converting volatility into a recurring revenue stream will face its first full test in the coming quarters.
