Cryptonomist

Are we here for the money or the tech?

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

One of the biggest crypto airdrops of all time is getting closer

I think we’ll start getting some updates on $POLY in the coming weeks, especially around tokenomics and how the token will actually be integrated into the platform (i.e. utility)

prediction markets are one of the few narratives that actually made it out of the crypto/defi bubble and keeping a steady flow of users and strong volume even while the rest of the market cooled off

and we’re talking about @Polymarket, the industry leader (alongside Kalshi), which has consistently had over 600k active users and 400m OI in the past months

hard to imagine this launching at a low valuation; personally, I expect min a 5B FDV

[Dustin Karp @digitdustin]

Stopped by @mustafap0ly desk today..

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

So… who’s actually supposed to be the next big perp dex?

I’ve been looking around and I’m struggling to find one that really stands out

@extendedapp?
Clear decline in metrics over the past few months and there is no news about the TGE. nothing even about the Revolut and eToro partnership

@variational_io?
Still no OLP and no news about the TGE.
It's great they are 0 fees, but I don't like that there's no OB

@grvt_io?
Great passive yield for your stables, but the fees are too high to be attractive

@01Exchange?
I’ve been following them since January, but there’s been little improvement. Indeed, the metrics are practically the same. Unless they turn things around in the coming months, they’ll end up with a token that’s worthless or they’ll shut down sooner (just like Polynomial did)

@pacifica_fi?
Not much chance of making it after TGE. Fees are high, and there’s nothing that really differentiates it or gives it an edge

what do y'all think? Unless someone convinces me otherwise, I don't see how any of them could pull it off tbh

Why would a user choose them over HL/Lighter?

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

@mazyTrading Yep, time to change

I'll keep an eye on them, but now I'll also talk about other projects

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

Paradex is in real trouble if they can't get $DIME going up in the next weeks

A token’s value often doesn’t reflect the protocol’s value, but it’s certainly a key indicator of the project’s health and appeal

4.1M MC / 21.2M FDV is painfully low

At this point, rewards barely mean anything anymore
What's the point of a S3 if the token is worthless?

Even the worst perp dexs tokens are worth more

$ORDER is ~4x higher
$BASED ~5x higher
$AVNT ~6x higher
$BP ~6.5x higher

The market apparently already considers Paradex a dead platform

I’m really, really disappointed with how things are going

I feel bad for the team, I know how much effort they’re putting in, and I feel bad for the community, which hasn’t been rewarded for all the time and capital invested in this project

They’re still grinding, trying to turn it around, but realistically, what are the odds they actually pull it off?

*And then also the thing about how they had to go back to charging fees to retail users (just a few weeks after the TGE) after pushing the “0 Fees” narrative for months is really embarrassing

Obv it's harder to make your token appealing, but a 0-fee perp dex is sustainable

It just needs a solid base behind it: strong metrics, real activity and enough volume to actually make the whole thing work

Lighter has managed to build that; Paradex hasn’t

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

UPDATE

It’s been 4 months since I posted my 2026 perp dex predictions. Figured it’s a good time to check back in and see what’s actually playing out:

< Hyperliquid remains king ✅
Not much to argue here. It was the obvious call and it’s still holding up

I haven’t used them in a while (the fees are too high... there are better platforms on the market for my needs) but that doesn’t really matter

The distribution, the userbase, the revenue… it’s still ahead

No real signal yet on further airdrops either. That’ll be something to watch going into the rest of the year

< The perp DEX farming meta breaks down ✅
This one people pushed back on a lot at the time.

But looking at it now… the whole “farm every new perp dexs” meta has clearly lost steam. A mix of weak TGEs and overfarmed platforms killed a lot of the upside

Seen quite a few people grind for months (or years) just to end up flat or even negative

Even with incentives still being thrown around, a lot of these platforms just aren’t pulling in new users anymore

I don’t think it’s dead, just burned out

Every cycle, a legit dex shows up, drops a big airdrop, and pulls everyone back in; it’s happened over and over

We’re probably just in the cooldown phase right now

Give it some time, a couple tweaks to the model, and the narrative will be right back

< Paradex post-TGE surprises 🟥
Well, it's true… but not in the way I expected

They had the potential to do very well even after the TGE, but many things weren't handled well

Incompetence and poor execution are the main factors behind this outcome. I won't go into detail because I've already dedicated several posts and discussions to this

I’ve supported them for a long time, so this one’s disappointing. Probably one of the teams that’s let me down the most since I’ve been in crypto (and it’s been quite a few years)

Still holding the airdrop, but confidence isn’t what it used to be

And more broadly, this ties into the point above, it’s not just Paradex. A lot of perp dexs haven’t lived up the tge expectations

Backpack and EdgeX were also disappointing. We also saw a significant downsizing on Extended and Variational

< A big name blows up ✅
Unfortunately, this played out too

As we’ve seen, Drift (the largest perp dex on Solana) got hit for over $200M. One of the bigger exploits in the last years, and it definitely didn’t help sentiment.

At its core, this is a team failure. An admin key getting compromised just shouldn’t happen

Security MUSTS be better; it’s embarrassing that it’s so easy for projects with this much capital at stake to get hacked

How can people trust leaving their money onchain if these things happen so often? It’s getting harder and harder to keep this issue afloat now that yields are lower than in the past

That said, Circle doesn’t come out clean here either. If you’re a centralized issuer and you have both the ability and the time to freeze stolen funds but choose not to act, you’re part of the problem

Not a great look for the space overall

< Crypto options go mainstream ☑️
Still early; not much has changed here yet

Still feels like we’re in the very early innings. The infrastructure is being built, but it hasn’t really clicked for most users

Paradex is one of the teams I’m watching closely on this front. The potential is there, but right now it’s in private beta, where there are low liquidity, potential bugs and room for improvement

If options do take off this cycle, someone’s going to capture a lot of value. Just not clear who yet

So, to sum up, here’s where we stand: three right take, one wrong, and one still pending

Let’s see how the rest of the year goes

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

Now that everyone is dropping their predictions for the new year, I’ll do the same.

Some of these feel obvious, others less. Let’s see which ones age well.

Here are my top 5 predictions for 2026 (perp dex edition) 👇

< Hyperliquid remains king
They will stay in first place in terms of OI, TVL, and revenue. There will be incentives for the HyperEVM and a further airdrop for users who traded post $HYPE tge.

< The perp dex farming meta breaks down
The strategy of “jumping on every new perp dexs” and creating farming bots will no longer be EV+ for most people. The ROI will no longer be positive, hype fades, and many platforms that seem huge today will empty fast. Basically most of the platforms that don't have better products than their competitors will see their metrics collapse rapidly.

< Paradex surprises post-TGE
Many people assume metrics will fall off a cliff once the airdrop incentives are gone. I think the opposite happens. After the natural post $DIME slowdown, when most farmers leave, Paradex starts growing again on real usage. New integrations, new products, privacy and consistently better execution costs do the heavy lifting.

< A big name blows up
A well-known perp dex will be hacked or exploited. Poor safeguards and overconfidence open the door, users get burned and trust in perp dexs takes a hit.

< Crypto options become mainstream
Perps aren’t the endgame and only scratch the surface strategy-wise. Options unlock a much wider set of tools for retail traders and will turn into a very lucrative business on both sides. A lot of platforms will try to offer them, but one will clearly pull ahead and end up dominating most of the onchain options market.

This is how the landscape looks today.
It’ll be interesting to revisit this in Jan 2027 and see what actually changed.

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

As announced a few days ago... Dated Options are now available on Paradex

This is a really big step for the platform; things are getting serious now

This opens up a whole different layer of trading, from simple stuff like covered calls and protective puts to more advanced strategies. The market that Paradex is targeting is expanding, and I believe that crypto options are still in their infancy and underestimated by people

I'm also interested to see how much of @tradeparadigm flow they can pull onto @paradex, since they’ve already pushed nearly 60B in volume this year 👀

[Paradex @paradex]

BTC Dated Options are now in Private Beta

Shizopunks and Money Badger holders have been whitelisted to trade $BTC Dated Options.

Bugs identified before full rollout are eligible for XP rewards under the bug bounty program, with rewards based on impact. To report an issue, open a support ticket with clear reproduction steps.

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

They've spent over 600k because they bought at higher prices than current ones (they also bought 4.4% of the supply before the tge, buying back the XPs OTC from institutional investors)

Then how can it be overvalued if there are other competitors with lower metrics/revenue and a token that's worth more than DIME?

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

Let’s be honest: if the market is pricing $DIME at 30M FDV and just 6M market cap, it’s basically saying one thing:

this project has no real value and isn’t expected to survive

After how the TGE played out and the drop in metrics, it’s not hard to see why people think that. At this point, barely anyone is talking about Paradex anymore, and most of the early supporters have already moved on

But does that really mean it’s over? That there’s no way out?

It's tough, but they can still make it

Despite the mistakes and some questionable choices, the team behind it is still solid. They’ve proven it over time with both @paradex and @tradeparadigm

In less than 20 days, they’ve already bought back over 2% of the entire DIME supply, while continuing to ship and push new features; and really soon, they’ll release dated options, which is their core strength and the one product that could actually shift both sentiment and activity on the platform

It’s already live on testnet, and is expected to launch on mainnet in the coming days for whitelisted users (you can DM @fiddybps1 with your Paradex address if you want early access)

Their main priority now is to improve the metrics (especially revenue) and start delivering real value to DIME

I’m not giving any financial advice, and I’m not telling anyone to buy or sell. The situation is still critical, no doubt about that. But personally, I’m still holding my tokens. At these levels, it feels undervalued, and I still believe the team has what it takes to turn things around

This isn’t the first time they’ve had to rebuild either. The team came out of the FTX era and has already been through tougher moments than this.

And if there’s one thing I’m pretty sure about… they’re not just going to sit back and let it die

[Mingo @MingoAirdrop]

$30M FDV

You cannot make this shit up

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

Just a few things that come to mind about 01:

- Low liquidity in the OB (on ANY pair). it’s practically impossible to trade alts given the spread and the excessively high funding rate
- Fees are too high to be attractive. If you factor in spreads and fees, you're getting one of the worst execution costs you'll find among perp dexs
- Too much latency
- Vault not yet available
- Points distribution system is poorly designed
- Too many infrastructure issues, from the platform to N1. If you're a trader, you want a stable and secure environment to trade in

I get that the platform hasn't been live for very long, but do you think it's attractive enough for a trader? Right now, it's obvious that there are only farmers, because otherwise it makes no sense to use it when there are much better alternatives available

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

JUST IN: Paradex surpasses Lighter in daily revenue

*Both are zero-fee business models, so don't come in the comments saying that X exchange with fees makes more revenue because the comparison doesn't make sense

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

@BonBon_1769 The situation is definitely critical, but let's see how they move

as I said, one product that can attract interest and attention are the dated options, where they may have an edge over competitors given their experience and background

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

The team has already bought over 6% of the total supply: 2% post-TGE and 4% pre-TGE (buying back XP from institutional investors)

I don’t know how much revenue they’ve retained over time to fund buybacks, but they’ve already stated that starting from the token launch, they’ll use all their net revenue to buy DIME on the market

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

@DefendCloneX Will you keep trading on Variational and Extended even after their TGE?

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

@ketanitam Yeah, unfortunately, DIME launch turned out to be a disaster

Personally, I'm still holding on to it, but if you no longer believe in the project and the team, it makes sense to sell and move on

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

@lectrixbt @paradex @Lighter_xyz lmao things went as badly as possible but paradex is still way better than @01Exchange

Why do you support them so much? I tried it even before the points campaign started, but it's really terrible tbh

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

What is the Paradex team actually doing to rebuild trust after $DIME TGE?

Here are some of the concrete steps we’re seeing:

- Expanding liquidity and distribution for DIME, with listings across multiple venues: DEXs like Hyperliquid, Uniswap, Jupiter, Meteora and also CEXs like MEXC. This is likely just the beginning, with more listings expected (including perps)

- Aggressive buybacks, utilizing 100% of net revenues from @paradex and strong backing from @tradeparadigm. So far, around 1.6% of the total supply has already been bought back since TGE

- Shipping new features fast, including RWAs (first one already live with silver — $XAG)

- Dated options + Paradigm RFQ integration coming soon, which is probably one of the team’s strongest edges given their background

- An AI hub, where you’ll be able to connect tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini directly to your Paradex account to improve execution and strategies

Overall, the team still looks very active and clearly trying to deliver, especially after the disappointment around the TGE

Considering all of this has happened in just two weeks, it’s actually quite a lot

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

Btw in less than a week, @paradex and @tradeparadigm have already acquired about 1.3% of the total DIME supply through buybacks

$DIME buybacks so far:
- Paradex buyback: 815k
- Paradigm buyback: 12.4M

Total: 13.2M DIME bought back in just a few days

At this pace, they could theoretically acquire the entire supply in less than a year and a half, which is crazy to think about

All of this makes the current valuation look even more interesting and highlights how potentially undervalued the token could be

You can check the balances of both funds here:
https://t.co/h4WiXwFghz

I expect they’ll soon add this directly to the DIME Fund page as well

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

What's going on with Paradex?

$DIME keeps dropping

Current valuation:
- $33M FDV
- $8M MC

We’re talking about a platform that generated about $77.5k in revenue over the last 7d (~4M annualized). At these levels, the token is trading at one of the lowest P/E ratios among perp dexes

There’s almost no interest, very little liquidity, and basically no buying pressure on the token, even though the platform is backed by @tradeparadigm, one of the biggest players in the options space (which also increases demands on the token with a larger buyback)

On top of that, the team has already said they’re planning to release soon dated options, Paradigm RFQ integration, FX and RWA markets

tbh the whole situation feels pretty strange

With the Reya and Based TGEs coming up soon, I’m really curious to see how the market ends up valuing those tokens, where metrics and revenues are even lower than Paradex

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

What's going on with Paradex?

$DIME keeps dropping

Current valuation:
- $33M FDV
- $8M MC

We’re talking about a platform that generated about $77.5k in revenue over the last 7d (~4M annualized). At these levels, the token is trading at one of the lowest P/E ratios among perp dexes

There’s almost no interest, very little liquidity, and basically no buying pressure on the token, even though the platform is backed by @tradeparadigm, one of the biggest players in the options space (which also increases demands on the token with a larger buyback)

On top of that, the team has already said they’re planning to release soon dated options, Paradigm RFQ integration, FX and RWA markets

tbh the whole situation feels pretty strange

With the Reya and Based TGEs coming up soon, I’m really curious to see how the market ends up valuing those tokens, where metrics and revenues are even lower than Paradex

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

WHICH PERP DEX TOKENS ARE OVER/UNDERVALUED?

Crypto perp dex valuations are usually discussed through narratives, tribal debates, or simple PA, but very rarely through the kind of framework that is normally used to evaluate real businesses

So today I wanted to try something different and look at the sector through one of the most basic metrics used in traditional finance: the P/E ratio (It's not the only factor that matters, but it's definitely one of the most important ones)

Instead of asking which token is pumping or which protocol has the loudest community, the more meaningful question is how much the market is currently paying for the revenue these exchanges actually generate

To explore this, I pulled the 30d and 7d revenue data for the main perp dex platforms and compared those numbers with the valuation of their tokens
(Source: DefiLlama)

From there, I calculated the P/E ratio in two ways: first against the circulating market cap, which reflects the value the market is assigning to the tokens currently in circulation, and then against the FDV, which reflects the theoretical value of the entire token supply

Using two revenue timeframes gives a clearer picture as well, especially in a market like the current one where activity can fluctuate significantly and shorter timeframes can sometimes capture changes in momentum earlier

When you run the numbers this way, the differences between projects become very visible

Here is what the sector looks like right now 👇

@HyperliquidX — $HYPE
MC: $8.79B
FDV: $32.6B

30d revenue (644.5M annualized)
- P/E (MC): 13.6
- P/E (FDV): 50.6

7d revenue (797M annualized)
- P/E (MC): 11.0
- P/E (FDV): 40.9

@Aster_DEX — $ASTER
MC: $1.74B
FDV: $5.49B

30d revenue ($127.1M annualized)
- P/E (MC): 13.7
- P/E (FDV): 43.2

7d revenue ($66.6M annualized)
- P/E (MC): 26.1
- P/E (FDV): 82.4

@Lighter_xyz — $LIT
MC: $263M
FDV: $1.05B

30d revenue ($50.5M annualized)
- P/E (MC): 5.2
- P/E (FDV): 20.8

7d revenue ($44.2M annualized)
- P/E (MC): 6.0
- P/E (FDV): 23.7

@avantisfi — $AVNT
MC: $48M
FDV: $150M

30d revenue ($15.1M annualized)
- P/E (MC): 3.2
- P/E (FDV): 9.9

7d revenue ($17.9M annualized)
- P/E (MC): 2.7
- P/E (FDV): 8.4

@OfficialApeXdex — $APEX
MC: $38M
FDV: $140M

30d revenue ($2.5M annualized)
- P/E (MC): 15.3
- P/E (FDV): 55.7

7d revenue ($2.8M annualized)
- P/E (MC): 13.7
- P/E (FDV): 49.9

@dYdX — $DYDX
MC: $70.9M
FDV: $81.9M

30d revenue ($3.39M annualized)
- P/E (MC): 20.9
- P/E (FDV): 24.2

7d revenue ($4.46M annualized)
- P/E (MC): 15.9
- P/E (FDV): 18.4

@paradex — $DIME
MC: $10.5M
FDV: $42M

30d revenue ($6.46M annualized)
- P/E (MC): 1.6
- P/E (FDV): 6.5

7d revenue ($4.42M annualized)
- P/E (MC): 2.4
- P/E (FDV): 9.5

What stands out immediately is how uneven the valuations across the sector actually are. Some projects are currently trading at 40–80× revenue, while others are sitting closer to single-digit multiples, despite operating in the same category of product

Gaps like this rarely persist forever in markets that become more efficient over time

Based purely on revenue multiples, the gap between the most expensive and the cheapest token in the sector is massive. What makes this even more interesting is that DIME (currently the lowest multiple in the entire group) only launched about a week ago

NFA, but this suggests the market may have significantly undervalued it, at least relative to its competitors, likely influenced by the negative sentiment surrounding the platform and the perp dex narrative over the past weeks/months

Of course, you can’t judge a project on revenue multiples alone. Growth potential, tokenomics, distribution, liquidity, and the quality of the product itself all matter when it comes to understanding the real long-term value of a protocol

However, when you strip away narratives and look strictly at how much revenue these platforms generate relative to their token valuations, the market is clearly assigning very different expectations to projects that operate in the same space

Some tokens are priced as if their future growth is almost guaranteed, while others are trading as if the market expects them to struggle or even disappear

And that’s what makes this gap so interesting. The real question is simple: which side of that valuation gap is the market getting wrong?

Opportunities always exist in markets, the hard part is recognizing them early and understanding how to take advantage of them

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

Where am I spreading FUD? I just wanted to express some thoughts on the TGE, and if you read carefully, you'll see that I'm the first one who wants the token and the platform to succeed

The criticism I have expressed are intended to help the team understand where I believe they have gone wrong and where they can improve

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

Honest thoughts on Paradex TGE

It's a long post, but it's worth reading to the end

So let's begin...

the $DIME launch was fucking terrible. Probably one of the worst launches we’ve seen in a long time

And I say this as someone who has supported @paradex for over a year. I traded there, provided liquidity and defended the project countless times

So yeah, this one hurts

The execution and communication surrounding the launch were honestly a disaster. When you have a highly engaged community like the one at Paradex, where many have dedicated time and money to contribute to the growth of the project, the minimum you can do is handle the TGE properly

At the end of the day, we ended up with the main token at 10m MC and 40m FDV

Even the worst memecoins have a higher value

That’s a valuation I wouldn’t have expected even in the absolute worst-case scenario, especially considering the platform’s metrics and the team behind it. These are the same people who built @tradeparadigm, not some random anonymous team launching a shitcoin

Which is why this whole situation feels so frustrating

And of course now all the haters are celebrating. Every other perp dexs community (and not only) is having a great time dunking on Paradex, saying they were right all along, mocking the launch, mocking the token, mocking @fiddybps1 and the whole team

But here’s the thing people don’t realize:
A weak TGE for Paradex doesn’t just hurt Paradex. It hurts the entire perp dexs ecosystem; as well as all other competitors without a real advantage

Because the message the market just received is very clear:
- There are too many perp dexs rn
- Most of them don’t have real PMF
- The hype around this sector has cooled down massively

If Paradex had launched strong (even something like 300m FDV) it would have shown that there’s still real demand for this narrative; Instead we got the opposite

A weak launch, a collapsing token price, zero interest and a market that now thinks the whole sector might be overvalued

You can already see the impact everywhere

$LIT has just reached a new ATL, bets on Polymarket have fallen and overall sentiment has worsened

Only $HYPE is holding steady, mainly due to the team's ability to generate strong and continuous buying pressure, currently turning the token deflationary

But even here there are some doubts: when will there be clarification on the large allocation still dedicated to the community? After all, we all know that many people use HL only in the hope that there is a secret points campaign, which I believe makes the metrics still quite boosted, even though there is still a strong organic component

We have also seen how HyperEVM is disappointing, with copy-paste projects offering little or no innovation and ridiculous airdrops

So yeah… the situation is not great

But now, back to the main topic: What will happen to Paradex? Can it still make it, or is it doomed to fail?

I think yeah, but honestly... now it all depends on the team

And before someone says I’m blindly defending the project because I have their badge, let me be clear: I’ve criticized several decisions from the team over the past months (those who are on dc know that), and I still stand by those criticisms

First, there were too many avoidable technical issues, the most obvious one being the chain rollback. The real issue here isn’t even the centralization aspect (let’s be honest, no perp dexs today is truly decentralized anyway) but incidents like that inevitably create unnecessary FUD and erode trust in the team, especially in a market that is already skeptical

Then there’s the S2 extension, which in hindsight probably should have been avoided. It would have made much more sense to move forward with the TGE last year, particularly considering that several of the features and improvements that were supposed to justify the extension were never actually delivered during that period

As a consequence, early S2 users were effectively diluted, since the XP:DIME ratio ended up dropping significantly. Many of the people who supported the platform early ended up receiving less relative value than they expected, which understandably created frustration

Communication with the community is another area where things could have been handled much better. I genuinely don’t understand why so many teams underestimate this, because communication is fundamental for any project. Your community needs to understand what you’re building, where the project is going, and why certain decisions are being made. Without that transparency, confidence starts to fade very quickly, and especially in crypto, a project without a community simply doesn’t survive

The WL campaign is another example where the execution didn’t really achieve the intended results. It was supposed to expand the platform’s reach and bring in new users, but in practice the impact was far more limited than expected

There’s also the whole NFT side of the ecosystem (MoneyBadgers, ShizoPunks, Dave Fighter) which was initially presented as something that would play a meaningful role within the platform. In reality, they never received the level of value or integration that many holders expected, which inevitably generated criticism over time. Maybe that changes in the future, but for now it’s hard to argue that the NFT strategy delivered what people were hoping for

And finally, there’s the marketing side, where the team clearly should have done MUCH better

Now personally I’m not a huge fan of the typical crypto marketing playbook anyway. Throwing money at influencers rarely solves anything; half of them are low-quality (or even just bot) and the other half will shill anything for a paycheck

Then, I don't know about you, but when I see a product being heavily advertised, I try to avoid it at all costs, so in reality you get the opposite effect of what you hoped for

In fact, I respect the HL approach much more: spend zero on marketing and focus all your resources on building the best possible product

Because at the end of the day, even though marketing can help, the product itself is still the strongest form of marketing you can have. If a platform genuinely offers something better than the competition, users/traders will talk about it naturally, word spreads, liquidity follows, and the ecosystem grows organically

And these are just some of the criticisms that come to mind... but so what can the team do to get back on track?

Precisely on the last point mentioned. I believe Paradex can make it because, objectively, the product is (still) great

Despite declining metrics and liquidity, the core product is still strong. Execution costs are competitive, the infrastructure is solid, and the team understands the the markets at a deeper level than most projects in this space (despite some mistakes, this is undeniably true)

The real problem atm, however, is not the exchange, but the token

Because you can have a great platform, but if your token is worthless, it's very difficult to attract users and liquidity, especially in a highly competitive environment such as perp dexs

Rn $DIME simply has no utility, and indeed, as we have seen, buying pressure is pratically zero

If you take a step back and look at it objectively, there is no valid reason to buy or hold it today, unless you believe it's undervalued and have confidence in the team that will ultimately implement the promised utilities

About that, if we check out the "DIME Genesis" post from the Foundation, they've outlined a few ways they plan to create value for the token: buybacks funded by platform revenue (today they've created DAF: DIME Assistance Fund, where they'll do periodic buybacks), staking mechanisms that unlock ecosystem features, and an interesting unlocking structure tied to platform growth and performance (which leads the team to push even harder to improve the product and bring greater value to its token)

That said, it's impossible to ignore that Paradex is now at a critical juncture. The next few weeks will be decisive for the future of the platform. As someone who has supported the project from a long time, I want and hope more than ever to see the team succeed

But that's is all I can say at this point:
Let's see what the team's next moves will be and whether they will prove that the market was wrong to value $DIME at such a low price

[Cryptonomist @CryptonomistX]

*I haven't sold any tokens and am holding all the $DIME I received. The image posted was taken without connecting the wallet.