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References - dYdX governance…ht rules. - dYdX Foundation —– expanded utility of DYDX on t…hVeto, delegator inheritance).

How Caper approaches this dYd… A caper member’s vote weight is (t·v)/(V·T) –combines held tokens t timeswith the member’s earned soulboun…rship/soulbound-tokens) votes v, over supply V and circulation T – computed by the contract’s compute_vote_weight helper and reused verbatim by exit() to size, and the same weight sets a member’s treasury share on exit, so the same metric that governs also settl…rship voting a typed treasury.

Name dYdX Type Protocol DAO (…hange) Governance token DYDX —– native staking + governance t…-sdk/tree/main/x/gov) module —– proposals deposited, then vot…DK Layer 1 (the “dYdX Chain”) —– genesis 26 Oct 2023 Notable …take-weighted chain governance

dYdX is a decentralized exchan… its own sovereign blockchain —– the dYdX Chain, a Cosmos SDK…much lighter governance layer —– a useful contrast to dYdX's f…ll on-chain Cosmos governance.

From an Ethereum L2 to a sover…e Cosmos SDK / CometBFT chain —– a genesis block produced by a…lf with Cosmos-native tooling.

On-chain governance through th…nimum deposit to reach a vote —– a 2,000 DYDX initial deposit … vote opens with four options —– Yes, No, NoWithVeto, and Abst…ted and its deposit is burned —– a built-in cost for spam or c…ain’s own state-machine logic —– parameter changes, software u… canonical app-chain-DEX pair.

Stake to vote: validator inher…g gate and a delegation layer —– Sybil-resistant and security-…power proportional to capital.

What governance controls Beca…oling, but the binding levers —– what the chain runs and how it spends —– sit with staked-DYDX voters. …an direct staked-token voting.

How Caper approaches this dYd…ain that must also be secured —– but the decisive factor is st…’s vote weight is (t·v)/(V·T) —– held tokens t times the membe…er supply V and circulation T —– computed by the contract’s co…llot cast and by nothing else —– buys, sells and transfers mint none —– and non-transferable (its dep…m that holdings do not matter —– t is a straight multiplier, so a bag still counts —– but a large bag alone cannot …rship voting a typed treasury.

References - dYdX governance…ity/dydx/modules/governance) —– deposit, voting, quorum, thre…n/blog/dydx-token-mechanics) —– the ethDYDX→DYDX one-way migr…e-for-upcoming-cosmos-chain) —– the standalone Cosmos Layer 1…/cosmos-sdk/tree/main/x/gov) —– the underlying governance pri…hVeto, delegator inheritance).

dYdX is a decentralized exchan…nging the ground it stands on.Claims below link to dYdX’s ow…ll on-chain Cosmos governance.

How Caper approaches this dYd…erns also settles the way out.The vote token is DIVISIBILITY…rship voting a typed treasury.

How Caper approaches this dYd…inted one per ballot cast and 0.01 per XRD of gross trade value on each leg of a trade,by nothing else — buys, sells and transfers mint none — and non-transferable (its dep…rship voting a typed treasury.

dYdX is a decentralized exchan… borrowed Aave’s (/wiki/daos/organizations/lending/aave-dao) on-chain-Go…e directory: GMX (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/gmx) has traders take le…ant, Hyperliquid (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/hyperliquid) , takes the …ll on-chain Cosmos governance.

On-chain governance through th…smos AMM Osmosis (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/osmosis) governs itself … canonical app-chain-DEX pair.

What governance controls Beca…ompare Synthetix (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/synthetix) , which govern…an direct staked-token voting.

How Caper approaches this dYd…he vote token is DIVISIBILITY_NONEMAXIMUM, minted one per votballot cast and 0.01 per XRD of gross trade value on each leg of a trade, and non-transferable (its d…rship voting a typed treasury.

dYdX is a decentralized exchan…ching them against each other. A newer entrant, Hyperliquid (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/hyperliquid) , takes the same app-chain-perps route with its own L1 but a much lighter governance layer — a useful contrast to dYdX's full on-chain Cosmos governance.

Organization dYdX Type Perpetual-futures DEX on a sovereign app-chain Status 🟢 Active Founded 2017 (dYdX Trading); v4 chain launched October 2023 Token DYDX — staking, governance, capital allocation Chain dYdX Chain (Cosmos SDK, proof-of-stake L1) Governance On-chain, token-weighted; SubDAOs for treasury / grants / ops Website dydx.xyz (https://dydx.xyz) Related GMX (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/gmx) , Jupiter (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/jupiter) , Synthetix (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/synthetix) , DAO directory (/wiki/daos/organizations)

dYdX is a decentralized exchange for perpetual futures that, uniquely among the major DeFi DAOs, runs its protocol on its own blockchain. Where most protocol DAOs govern a set of smart contracts deployed on a shared chain, dYdX governs a whole sovereign network — validators, block production, and the order book itself all answer to DYDX (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/dydx) stakers. That makes it the clearest working example of the sovereign app-chain governance archetype: a community that controls not just contract parameters but the base layer underneath them. The protocol was founded by Antonio Juliano in 2017, launched its first perpetuals product in 2020, and scaled through a StarkEx-based Ethereum Layer 2 (v3) before migrating to its own chain. Today it lists hundreds of perpetual markets and settles the trading, matching, and governance of the exchange fully on-chain.

From an L2 app to a sovereign chain dYdX v3 ran as a StarkWare-powered Ethereum L2 with an off-chain order book operated by dYdX Trading. That design was fast, but the matching engine and sequencing sat with a single operator — a centralization the team decided to remove. In a 2022–2023 community process the DAO voted to build dYdX Chain, a standalone Cosmos SDK (https://docs.cosmos.network/) proof-of-stake Layer 1, and to make DYDX its native staking and gas token. The chain launched in October 2023 (https://www.dydx.xyz/blog/dydx-chain-v4-0-release) . Its defining feature is a fully decentralized order book: every validator runs an in-memory matching engine, orders are gossiped across the network, and trades settle on-chain — there is no central sequencer to censor or halt the market. The original Ethereum token migrated 1:1 from ethDYDX to native DYDX as part of the move, a change ratified by governance vote (https://www.dydx.foundation/blog/dydx-token-utility-explaned) .

The DYDX token: stake, govern, allocate DYDX has a fixed maximum supply of 1 billion tokens and, per the dYdX Foundation (https://www.dydx.foundation/blog/dydx-token-utility-explaned) , three jobs: - Securing the network. Holders stake (delegate) DYDX to validators. Unusually, staking rewards are not inflationary — they are paid in USDC out of real protocol activity (trading and gas fees), so stakers earn the exchange's revenue rather than diluting each other. By mid-2025 over 300 million DYDX was staked across more than 17,700 addresses, with cumulative staking rewards exceeding $52 million in USDC. - Governance. Staked holders propose and vote on protocol changes on-chain — from adding markets to tuning network parameters — through the Cosmos SDK governance module (https://docs.cosmos.network/main/build/modules/gov) (a deposit to open a proposal, then a fixed voting period). This is on-chain governance (/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/fundamentals/on-chain-vs-off-chain-governance) in the strict sense: an approved proposal executes against the live chain without a multisig intermediary. - Capital allocation. Holders direct funding to purpose-built SubDAOs (/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/subdaos-and-working-groups) — a Treasury SubDAO, a Grants program, and an Operations arm — that execute strategy between votes.

The revenue flywheel: buybacks and MegaVault dYdX's 2024–2025 "dYdX Unlimited" upgrade turned protocol revenue back toward the token (https://www.dydx.xyz/blog/dydx-buyback-program) . It introduced permissionless market listings, an affiliate program, and MegaVault — a pooled USDC liquidity vault that automates market-making and shares its profits with depositors. The community then voted to route protocol fees into buying DYDX on the open market. In March 2025 a first program allocated 25% of net fees to buybacks; in November 2025 Proposal #313 raised that to 75% (https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/11/13/dydx-governance-approves-buyback-increase-to-75-of-protocol-revenue) (with 5% to the Treasury SubDAO and 5% to MegaVault), passing with 59.38% support. Crucially, the repurchased tokens are staked rather than burned — the buyback doubles as a way to harden the chain's security budget.

Why dYdX matters as a governance case dYdX pushes decentralization one layer deeper than a typical protocol DAO. A GMX (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/gmx) or Jupiter (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/jupiter) governs contracts on a chain someone else secures; dYdX's DAO is the chain's stakeholder set, so a governance vote can change consensus rules, fee flows, and the order book together. The trade-offs are the classic ones for a sovereign community: full self-determination and a native revenue token on one side, the burden of bootstrapping and defending an independent validator set on the other. It is the reference point for anyone weighing whether a protocol should live on shared infrastructure or run its own (/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/fundamentals/dao-governance-models) . How Caper approaches this dYdX shows governance and value capture working when a protocol owns its whole stack. Caper (/wiki/foundations/what-is-a-caper) takes the opposite starting point — every organization is one transaction to launch, with no chain to bootstrap — but keeps two ideas dYdX makes concrete. First, execution is genuinely on-chain: a passed proposal (/wiki/governance/proposals) runs as one of three typed actions (Payout, Invest, or Vote), not an arbitrary call a multisig has to honor. Second, value stays with the people who show up. Instead of a discretionary buyback, a Caper holder has an always-open exit (/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/rage-quit-and-exit-rights) : burn your stake and redeem a pro-rata slice of the treasury, sized by the same canonical vote weight (t·v)/(V·T) that governs your votes — so influence and the right to walk away are measured the same way.

Name dYdX Type Protocol DAO (decentralized perpetuals exchange) Governance token DYDX — native staking + governance token of the dYdX Chain (migrated from the Ethereum ERC-20 ethDYDX) Product An on-chain order-book perpetual-futures exchange Governance model On-chain via the Cosmos SDK x/gov (https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/tree/main/x/gov) module — proposals deposited, then voted by staked DYDX; validators vote on behalf of delegators who can override Architecture A standalone CometBFT (https://cometbft.com/) / Cosmos SDK Layer 1 (the “dYdX Chain”) — genesis 26 Oct 2023 Notable for Abandoning a top Ethereum L2 to launch its own app-chain, moving governance from Aave-style contracts to validator-and-stake-weighted chain governance

dYdX is a decentralized exchange for perpetual futures. Its distinguishing decision is architectural: rather than remain a smart-contract application on a shared chain, dYdX rebuilt itself as its own sovereign blockchain — the dYdX Chain, a Cosmos SDK (https://cosmos.network/) Layer 1 whose validator set runs a fully on-chain order book. That move reshaped its governance completely. Where the earlier Ethereum version borrowed Aave’s (/wiki/daos/organizations/lending/aave-dao) on-chain-Governor-plus-timelock machinery, the app-chain governs itself the way Cosmos chains do: through the standard governance module, where voting power is staked DYDX and validators carry their delegators’ votes by default. dYdX is the clearest case study in the wiki of a DAO that changed its governance by changing the ground it stands on. Claims below link to dYdX’s own documentation and primary reporting. dYdX's order book also sets it apart from the other main perps design in the directory: GMX (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/gmx) has traders take leverage against a shared liquidity pool rather than matching them against each other.

From an Ethereum L2 to a sovereign app-chain dYdX v3 ran as an Ethereum Layer 2 built on StarkEx (https://starkware.co/starkex/) , with an off-chain order book and matching engine operated by the dYdX company and on-chain settlement via a validium. Governance lived in Ethereum contracts modeled on Aave: a Governor tracking proposals, multiple timelock executors (short- and long-delay), a Safety Module staking pool, and a Governance Strategy that counted voting power from ethDYDX, wethDYDX, and staked stkDYDX. On 26 October 2023 the dYdX Chain launched on mainnet (https://www.theblock.co/post/259658/dydx-chain-officially-launches-on-mainnet-as-standalone-cosmos-layer-1) as a standalone Cosmos SDK / CometBFT chain — a genesis block produced by an independent validator set, not a rollup posting to Ethereum. The order book itself now lives on-chain, replicated across validators. A community governance vote initiated a migration of the token: holders bridge the Ethereum ethDYDX ERC-20 to the chain’s native DYDX through a one-way, permissionless, irreversible bridge (https://www.dydx.foundation/blog/dydx-token-mechanics) with no end date. The old Ethereum governance stack did not move across; the chain governs itself with Cosmos-native tooling.

On-chain governance through the Cosmos gov module The dYdX Chain uses the standard Cosmos SDK x/gov module (https://docs.dydx.community/dydx/modules/governance) , so its lifecycle mirrors other Cosmos chains rather than an Ethereum DAO: - Deposit period. A proposal must attract a minimum deposit to reach a vote — a 2,000 DYDX initial deposit is required to open it (the module’s initial-deposit ratio is 20% of the full minimum), within a 7-day deposit window; anyone may top it up. - Voting period. Once funded, a roughly 4-day vote opens with four options — Yes, No, NoWithVeto, and Abstain. - Passage. A proposal passes on a 33.4% quorum, a 50% Yes majority of non-abstaining votes, and fewer than 33.4% NoWithVeto. Abstain counts toward quorum but not toward the majority. - Veto teeth. If the NoWithVeto threshold is crossed, the proposal is rejected and its deposit is burned — a built-in cost for spam or captured proposals. Deposits are not burned merely for failing to reach quorum. Unlike an Ethereum Governor executing arbitrary calldata through a timelock, a passed dYdX proposal is applied by the chain’s own state-machine logic — parameter changes, software upgrades, and treasury spends handled as native governance actions. The fellow Cosmos AMM Osmosis (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/osmosis) governs itself through the same module, making the two the canonical app-chain-DEX pair.

Stake to vote: validator inheritance and delegator override The defining feature of Cosmos-style governance is that voting power is staked, not merely held. On the dYdX Chain a holder’s vote weight equals the DYDX they have actively staked, one-for-one; unstaked or unbonding tokens carry no weight ( governance module docs (https://docs.dydx.community/dydx/modules/governance) ). Because staking secures the chain, this fuses two roles the earlier Ethereum design kept separate: the token that pays for block security is the same token that votes. Staking is delegated to validators, and that shapes participation. By default a validator votes on behalf of everyone delegated to it, and any delegator who does not cast their own vote inherits the validator’s choice. A delegator who disagrees can override by voting directly with their own stake. The upshot is a plutocracy softened by delegation: default power pools in the validator set, but engaged delegators can always reclaim their weight. It is token-weighted voting (/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/voting/token-weighted-voting) with a staking gate and a delegation layer — Sybil-resistant and security-aligned, yet still power proportional to capital.

What governance controls Because dYdX is the chain, its governance reaches further than a single application’s parameters. Passed proposals can authorize software upgrades to the chain binary, tune module and market parameters (fees, margin, listing new perpetual markets), and direct the community treasury that funds grants and ecosystem work. The dYdX Foundation (https://www.dydx.foundation/) and the operations subDAO steward process and tooling, but the binding levers — what the chain runs and how it spends — sit with staked-DYDX voters. Governance here is not an overlay on a protocol; it is the protocol’s upgrade and treasury mechanism, expressed in the chain’s own consensus. For a different answer to the same problem, compare Synthetix (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/synthetix) , which governs through an elected Spartan Council rather than direct staked-token voting.

How Caper approaches this dYdX makes governance Sybil-resistant by tying it to staked capital and delegating it to a validator set: your vote is your stake, and if you do nothing your validator votes for you. It is a coherent design for a chain that must also be secured — but the decisive factor is still DYDX bought on a market, and the default resting place of power is the validators. Caper (/wiki/foundations/what-is-a-caper) folds a different quantity into the weight. A caper member’s vote weight is (t·v)/(V·T) — held tokens t times the member’s earned soulbound (/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/soulbound-tokens) votes v, over supply V and circulation T — computed by the contract’s compute_vote_weight helper and reused verbatim by exit() to size a member’s treasury share, so the same metric that governs also settles the way out. The vote token is DIVISIBILITY_NONE, minted one per vote, and non-transferable (its depositor role is bound to the component’s own global_caller and its updater is deny_all), so v is an accumulated record of participation that cannot be delegated to a validator, staked for yield, or bought on a market. This is not a claim that holdings do not matter — t is a straight multiplier, so a bag still counts — but a large bag alone cannot capture control the way a whale accumulating staked DYDX can, because the second factor has to be earned one vote at a time. Caper also declines dYdX’s coupling of security and governance: there is no validator set to delegate to and no staking layer, only a flat membership voting a typed treasury.

References - dYdX governance module documentation (https://docs.dydx.community/dydx/modules/governance) — deposit, voting, quorum, thresholds, and vote-weight rules. - dYdX Foundation — expanded utility of DYDX on the dYdX Chain (https://www.dydx.foundation/blog/dydx-token-mechanics) — the ethDYDX→DYDX one-way migration and staking. - The Block (https://www.theblock.co/post/259658/dydx-chain-officially-launches-on-mainnet-as-standalone-cosmos-layer-1) and CoinDesk (https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/10/24/dydx-decentralized-crypto-exchange-open-sources-v4-code-for-upcoming-cosmos-chain) — the standalone Cosmos Layer 1 launch (26 Oct 2023). - Cosmos SDK x/gov module (https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/tree/main/x/gov) — the underlying governance primitive (deposit/voting periods, NoWithVeto, delegator inheritance).

Name dYdX Type Protocol DAO (decentralized perpetuals exchange) Governance token DYDX — native staking + governance token of the dYdX Chain (migrated from the Ethereum ERC-20 ethDYDX) Product An on-chain order-book perpetual-futures exchange Governance model On-chain via the Cosmos SDK x/gov (https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/tree/main/x/gov) module — proposals deposited, then voted by staked DYDX; validators vote on behalf of delegators who can override Architecture A standalone CometBFT (https://cometbft.com/) / Cosmos SDK Layer 1 (the “dYdX Chain”) — genesis 26 Oct 2023 Notable for Abandoning a top Ethereum L2 to launch its own app-chain, moving governance from Aave-style contracts to validator-and-stake-weighted chain governance

dYdX is a decentralized exchange for perpetual futures. Its distinguishing decision is architectural: rather than remain a smart-contract application on a shared chain, dYdX rebuilt itself as its own sovereign blockchain — the dYdX Chain, a Cosmos SDK (https://cosmos.network/) Layer 1 whose validator set runs a fully on-chain order book. That move reshaped its governance completely. Where the earlier Ethereum version borrowed Aave’s (/wiki/daos/organizations/lending/aave-dao) on-chain-Governor-plus-timelock machinery, the app-chain governs itself the way Cosmos chains do: through the standard governance module, where voting power is staked DYDX and validators carry their delegators’ votes by default. dYdX is the clearest case study in the wiki of a DAO that changed its governance by changing the ground it stands on. Claims below link to dYdX’s own documentation and primary reporting. dYdX's order book also sets it apart from the other main perps design in the directory: GMX (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/gmx) has traders take leverage against a shared liquidity pool rather than matching them against each other.

From an Ethereum L2 to a sovereign app-chain dYdX v3 ran as an Ethereum Layer 2 built on StarkEx (https://starkware.co/starkex/) , with an off-chain order book and matching engine operated by the dYdX company and on-chain settlement via a validium. Governance lived in Ethereum contracts modeled on Aave: a Governor tracking proposals, multiple timelock executors (short- and long-delay), a Safety Module staking pool, and a Governance Strategy that counted voting power from ethDYDX, wethDYDX, and staked stkDYDX. On 26 October 2023 the dYdX Chain launched on mainnet (https://www.theblock.co/post/259658/dydx-chain-officially-launches-on-mainnet-as-standalone-cosmos-layer-1) as a standalone Cosmos SDK / CometBFT chain — a genesis block produced by an independent validator set, not a rollup posting to Ethereum. The order book itself now lives on-chain, replicated across validators. A community governance vote initiated a migration of the token: holders bridge the Ethereum ethDYDX ERC-20 to the chain’s native DYDX through a one-way, permissionless, irreversible bridge (https://www.dydx.foundation/blog/dydx-token-mechanics) with no end date. The old Ethereum governance stack did not move across; the chain governs itself with Cosmos-native tooling.

On-chain governance through the Cosmos gov module The dYdX Chain uses the standard Cosmos SDK x/gov module (https://docs.dydx.community/dydx/modules/governance) , so its lifecycle mirrors other Cosmos chains rather than an Ethereum DAO: - Deposit period. A proposal must attract a minimum deposit to reach a vote — a 2,000 DYDX initial deposit is required to open it (the module’s initial-deposit ratio is 20% of the full minimum), within a 7-day deposit window; anyone may top it up. - Voting period. Once funded, a roughly 4-day vote opens with four options — Yes, No, NoWithVeto, and Abstain. - Passage. A proposal passes on a 33.4% quorum, a 50% Yes majority of non-abstaining votes, and fewer than 33.4% NoWithVeto. Abstain counts toward quorum but not toward the majority. - Veto teeth. If the NoWithVeto threshold is crossed, the proposal is rejected and its deposit is burned — a built-in cost for spam or captured proposals. Deposits are not burned merely for failing to reach quorum. Unlike an Ethereum Governor executing arbitrary calldata through a timelock, a passed dYdX proposal is applied by the chain’s own state-machine logic — parameter changes, software upgrades, and treasury spends handled as native governance actions. The fellow Cosmos AMM Osmosis (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/osmosis) governs itself through the same module, making the two the canonical app-chain-DEX pair.

Stake to vote: validator inheritance and delegator override The defining feature of Cosmos-style governance is that voting power is staked, not merely held. On the dYdX Chain a holder’s vote weight equals the DYDX they have actively staked, one-for-one; unstaked or unbonding tokens carry no weight ( governance module docs (https://docs.dydx.community/dydx/modules/governance) ). Because staking secures the chain, this fuses two roles the earlier Ethereum design kept separate: the token that pays for block security is the same token that votes. Staking is delegated to validators, and that shapes participation. By default a validator votes on behalf of everyone delegated to it, and any delegator who does not cast their own vote inherits the validator’s choice. A delegator who disagrees can override by voting directly with their own stake. The upshot is a plutocracy softened by delegation: default power pools in the validator set, but engaged delegators can always reclaim their weight. It is token-weighted voting (/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/voting/token-weighted-voting) with a staking gate and a delegation layer — Sybil-resistant and security-aligned, yet still power proportional to capital.

What governance controls Because dYdX is the chain, its governance reaches further than a single application’s parameters. Passed proposals can authorize software upgrades to the chain binary, tune module and market parameters (fees, margin, listing new perpetual markets), and direct the community treasury that funds grants and ecosystem work. The dYdX Foundation (https://www.dydx.foundation/) and the operations subDAO steward process and tooling, but the binding levers — what the chain runs and how it spends — sit with staked-DYDX voters. Governance here is not an overlay on a protocol; it is the protocol’s upgrade and treasury mechanism, expressed in the chain’s own consensus. For a different answer to the same problem, compare Synthetix (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/synthetix) , which governs through an elected Spartan Council rather than direct staked-token voting.

How Caper approaches this dYdX makes governance Sybil-resistant by tying it to staked capital and delegating it to a validator set: your vote is your stake, and if you do nothing your validator votes for you. It is a coherent design for a chain that must also be secured — but the decisive factor is still DYDX bought on a market, and the default resting place of power is the validators. Caper (/wiki/foundations/what-is-a-caper) folds a different quantity into the weight. A caper member’s vote weight is (t·v)/(V·T) — held tokens t times the member’s earned soulbound (/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/soulbound-tokens) votes v, over supply V and circulation T — computed by the contract’s compute_vote_weight helper and reused verbatim by exit() to size a member’s treasury share, so the same metric that governs also settles the way out. The vote token is DIVISIBILITY_NONE, minted one per vote, and non-transferable (its depositor role is bound to the component’s own global_caller and its updater is deny_all), so v is an accumulated record of participation that cannot be delegated to a validator, staked for yield, or bought on a market. This is not a claim that holdings do not matter — t is a straight multiplier, so a bag still counts — but a large bag alone cannot capture control the way a whale accumulating staked DYDX can, because the second factor has to be earned one vote at a time. Caper also declines dYdX’s coupling of security and governance: there is no validator set to delegate to and no staking layer, only a flat membership voting a typed treasury.

References - dYdX governance module documentation (https://docs.dydx.community/dydx/modules/governance) — deposit, voting, quorum, thresholds, and vote-weight rules. - dYdX Foundation — expanded utility of DYDX on the dYdX Chain (https://www.dydx.foundation/blog/dydx-token-mechanics) — the ethDYDX→DYDX one-way migration and staking. - The Block (https://www.theblock.co/post/259658/dydx-chain-officially-launches-on-mainnet-as-standalone-cosmos-layer-1) and CoinDesk (https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/10/24/dydx-decentralized-crypto-exchange-open-sources-v4-code-for-upcoming-cosmos-chain) — the standalone Cosmos Layer 1 launch (26 Oct 2023). - Cosmos SDK x/gov module (https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/tree/main/x/gov) — the underlying governance primitive (deposit/voting periods, NoWithVeto, delegator inheritance).

Organization dYdX Type Perpetual-futures DEX on a sovereign app-chain Status 🟢 Active Founded 2017 (dYdX Trading); v4 chain launched October 2023 Token DYDX — staking, governance, capital allocation Chain dYdX Chain (Cosmos SDK, proof-of-stake L1) Governance On-chain, token-weighted; SubDAOs for treasury / grants / ops Website dydx.xyz (https://dydx.xyz) Related GMX (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/gmx) , Jupiter (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/jupiter) , Synthetix (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/synthetix) , DAO directory (/wiki/daos/organizations)

dYdX is a decentralized exchange for perpetual futures that, uniquely among the major DeFi DAOs, runs its protocol on its own blockchain. Where most protocol DAOs govern a set of smart contracts deployed on a shared chain, dYdX governs a whole sovereign network — validators, block production, and the order book itself all answer to DYDX (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/dydx) stakers. That makes it the clearest working example of the sovereign app-chain governance archetype: a community that controls not just contract parameters but the base layer underneath them. The protocol was founded by Antonio Juliano in 2017, launched its first perpetuals product in 2020, and scaled through a StarkEx-based Ethereum Layer 2 (v3) before migrating to its own chain. Today it lists hundreds of perpetual markets and settles the trading, matching, and governance of the exchange fully on-chain.

From an L2 app to a sovereign chain dYdX v3 ran as a StarkWare-powered Ethereum L2 with an off-chain order book operated by dYdX Trading. That design was fast, but the matching engine and sequencing sat with a single operator — a centralization the team decided to remove. In a 2022–2023 community process the DAO voted to build dYdX Chain, a standalone Cosmos SDK (https://docs.cosmos.network/) proof-of-stake Layer 1, and to make DYDX its native staking and gas token. The chain launched in October 2023 (https://www.dydx.xyz/blog/dydx-chain-v4-0-release) . Its defining feature is a fully decentralized order book: every validator runs an in-memory matching engine, orders are gossiped across the network, and trades settle on-chain — there is no central sequencer to censor or halt the market. The original Ethereum token migrated 1:1 from ethDYDX to native DYDX as part of the move, a change ratified by governance vote (https://www.dydx.foundation/blog/dydx-token-utility-explaned) .

The DYDX token: stake, govern, allocate DYDX has a fixed maximum supply of 1 billion tokens and, per the dYdX Foundation (https://www.dydx.foundation/blog/dydx-token-utility-explaned) , three jobs: - Securing the network. Holders stake (delegate) DYDX to validators. Unusually, staking rewards are not inflationary — they are paid in USDC out of real protocol activity (trading and gas fees), so stakers earn the exchange's revenue rather than diluting each other. By mid-2025 over 300 million DYDX was staked across more than 17,700 addresses, with cumulative staking rewards exceeding $52 million in USDC. - Governance. Staked holders propose and vote on protocol changes on-chain — from adding markets to tuning network parameters — through the Cosmos SDK governance module (https://docs.cosmos.network/main/build/modules/gov) (a deposit to open a proposal, then a fixed voting period). This is on-chain governance (/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/fundamentals/on-chain-vs-off-chain-governance) in the strict sense: an approved proposal executes against the live chain without a multisig intermediary. - Capital allocation. Holders direct funding to purpose-built SubDAOs (/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/subdaos-and-working-groups) — a Treasury SubDAO, a Grants program, and an Operations arm — that execute strategy between votes.

The revenue flywheel: buybacks and MegaVault dYdX's 2024–2025 "dYdX Unlimited" upgrade turned protocol revenue back toward the token (https://www.dydx.xyz/blog/dydx-buyback-program) . It introduced permissionless market listings, an affiliate program, and MegaVault — a pooled USDC liquidity vault that automates market-making and shares its profits with depositors. The community then voted to route protocol fees into buying DYDX on the open market. In March 2025 a first program allocated 25% of net fees to buybacks; in November 2025 Proposal #313 raised that to 75% (https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/11/13/dydx-governance-approves-buyback-increase-to-75-of-protocol-revenue) (with 5% to the Treasury SubDAO and 5% to MegaVault), passing with 59.38% support. Crucially, the repurchased tokens are staked rather than burned — the buyback doubles as a way to harden the chain's security budget.

Why dYdX matters as a governance case dYdX pushes decentralization one layer deeper than a typical protocol DAO. A GMX (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/gmx) or Jupiter (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/jupiter) governs contracts on a chain someone else secures; dYdX's DAO is the chain's stakeholder set, so a governance vote can change consensus rules, fee flows, and the order book together. The trade-offs are the classic ones for a sovereign community: full self-determination and a native revenue token on one side, the burden of bootstrapping and defending an independent validator set on the other. It is the reference point for anyone weighing whether a protocol should live on shared infrastructure or run its own (/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/fundamentals/dao-governance-models) . How Caper approaches this dYdX shows governance and value capture working when a protocol owns its whole stack. Caper (/wiki/foundations/what-is-a-caper) takes the opposite starting point — every organization is one transaction to launch, with no chain to bootstrap — but keeps two ideas dYdX makes concrete. First, execution is genuinely on-chain: a passed proposal (/wiki/governance/proposals) runs as one of three typed actions (Payout, Invest, or Vote), not an arbitrary call a multisig has to honor. Second, value stays with the people who show up. Instead of a discretionary buyback, a Caper holder has an always-open exit (/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/rage-quit-and-exit-rights) : burn your stake and redeem a pro-rata slice of the treasury, sized by the same canonical vote weight (t·v)/(V·T) that governs your votes — so influence and the right to walk away are measured the same way.

On-chain governance through th… as native governance actions. The fellow Cosmos AMM Osmosis (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/osmosis) governs itself through the same module, making the two the canonical app-chain-DEX pair.

dYdX is a decentralized exchan…ntation and primary reporting. dYdX's order book also sets it apart from the other main perps design in the directory: GMX (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/gmx) has traders take leverage against a shared liquidity pool rather than matching them against each other.

Stake to vote: validator inher…ken-weighted voting (/wiki/daos-governance/concepts/voting/token-weighte…power proportional to capital.

What governance controls Beca… in the chain’s own consensus. For a different answer to the same problem, compare Synthetix (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/synthetix) , which governs through an elected Spartan Council rather than direct staked-token voting.

How Caper approaches this dYd…s earned soulbound (/wiki/daos-governance/concepts/membership/soulbound…rship voting a typed treasury.

dYdX is a decentralized exchan… borrowed Aave’s (/wiki/daos/organizations/lending/aave-dao) on-chain-Governor-p…ntation and primary reporting.

Stake to vote: validator inher…d voting (/wiki/daos/concepts/voting/token-weighted-voting) with a…power proportional to capital.

How Caper approaches this dYd…oulbound (/wiki/daos/concepts/membership/soulbound-tokens) votes v, ov…rship voting a typed treasury.

Name dYdX Type Protocol DAO (…he Cosmos SDK x/gov (https://docs.cosmos.network/main/build/modulesgithub.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/tree/main/x/gov) module — proposals depo…take-weighted chain governance

References - dYdX governance…mos SDK x/gov module (https://docs.cosmos.network/main/build/modulesgithub.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/tree/main/x/gov) — the underlying govern…hVeto, delegator inheritance).

Name dYdX Type Protocol DAO (decentralized perpetuals exchange) Governance token DYDX — native staking + governance token of the dYdX Chain (migrated from the Ethereum ERC-20 ethDYDX) Product An on-chain order-book perpetual-futures exchange Governance model On-chain via the Cosmos SDK x/gov (https://docs.cosmos.network/main/build/modules/gov) module — proposals deposited, then voted by staked DYDX; validators vote on behalf of delegators who can override Architecture A standalone CometBFT (https://cometbft.com/) / Cosmos SDK Layer 1 (the “dYdX Chain”) — genesis 26 Oct 2023 Notable for Abandoning a top Ethereum L2 to launch its own app-chain, moving governance from Aave-style contracts to validator-and-stake-weighted chain governance

dYdX is a decentralized exchange for perpetual futures. Its distinguishing decision is architectural: rather than remain a smart-contract application on a shared chain, dYdX rebuilt itself as its own sovereign blockchain — the dYdX Chain, a Cosmos SDK (https://cosmos.network/) Layer 1 whose validator set runs a fully on-chain order book. That move reshaped its governance completely. Where the earlier Ethereum version borrowed Aave’s (/wiki/daos/aave-dao) on-chain-Governor-plus-timelock machinery, the app-chain governs itself the way Cosmos chains do: through the standard governance module, where voting power is staked DYDX and validators carry their delegators’ votes by default. dYdX is the clearest case study in the wiki of a DAO that changed its governance by changing the ground it stands on. Claims below link to dYdX’s own documentation and primary reporting.

From an Ethereum L2 to a sovereign app-chain dYdX v3 ran as an Ethereum Layer 2 built on StarkEx (https://starkware.co/starkex/) , with an off-chain order book and matching engine operated by the dYdX company and on-chain settlement via a validium. Governance lived in Ethereum contracts modeled on Aave: a Governor tracking proposals, multiple timelock executors (short- and long-delay), a Safety Module staking pool, and a Governance Strategy that counted voting power from ethDYDX, wethDYDX, and staked stkDYDX. On 26 October 2023 the dYdX Chain launched on mainnet (https://www.theblock.co/post/259658/dydx-chain-officially-launches-on-mainnet-as-standalone-cosmos-layer-1) as a standalone Cosmos SDK / CometBFT chain — a genesis block produced by an independent validator set, not a rollup posting to Ethereum. The order book itself now lives on-chain, replicated across validators. A community governance vote initiated a migration of the token: holders bridge the Ethereum ethDYDX ERC-20 to the chain’s native DYDX through a one-way, permissionless, irreversible bridge (https://www.dydx.foundation/blog/dydx-token-mechanics) with no end date. The old Ethereum governance stack did not move across; the chain governs itself with Cosmos-native tooling.

On-chain governance through the Cosmos gov module The dYdX Chain uses the standard Cosmos SDK x/gov module (https://docs.dydx.community/dydx/modules/governance) , so its lifecycle mirrors other Cosmos chains rather than an Ethereum DAO: - Deposit period. A proposal must attract a minimum deposit to reach a vote — a 2,000 DYDX initial deposit is required to open it (the module’s initial-deposit ratio is 20% of the full minimum), within a 7-day deposit window; anyone may top it up. - Voting period. Once funded, a roughly 4-day vote opens with four options — Yes, No, NoWithVeto, and Abstain. - Passage. A proposal passes on a 33.4% quorum, a 50% Yes majority of non-abstaining votes, and fewer than 33.4% NoWithVeto. Abstain counts toward quorum but not toward the majority. - Veto teeth. If the NoWithVeto threshold is crossed, the proposal is rejected and its deposit is burned — a built-in cost for spam or captured proposals. Deposits are not burned merely for failing to reach quorum. Unlike an Ethereum Governor executing arbitrary calldata through a timelock, a passed dYdX proposal is applied by the chain’s own state-machine logic — parameter changes, software upgrades, and treasury spends handled as native governance actions.

Stake to vote: validator inheritance and delegator override The defining feature of Cosmos-style governance is that voting power is staked, not merely held. On the dYdX Chain a holder’s vote weight equals the DYDX they have actively staked, one-for-one; unstaked or unbonding tokens carry no weight ( governance module docs (https://docs.dydx.community/dydx/modules/governance) ). Because staking secures the chain, this fuses two roles the earlier Ethereum design kept separate: the token that pays for block security is the same token that votes. Staking is delegated to validators, and that shapes participation. By default a validator votes on behalf of everyone delegated to it, and any delegator who does not cast their own vote inherits the validator’s choice. A delegator who disagrees can override by voting directly with their own stake. The upshot is a plutocracy softened by delegation: default power pools in the validator set, but engaged delegators can always reclaim their weight. It is token-weighted voting (/wiki/daos/concepts/token-weighted-voting) with a staking gate and a delegation layer — Sybil-resistant and security-aligned, yet still power proportional to capital.

What governance controls Because dYdX is the chain, its governance reaches further than a single application’s parameters. Passed proposals can authorize software upgrades to the chain binary, tune module and market parameters (fees, margin, listing new perpetual markets), and direct the community treasury that funds grants and ecosystem work. The dYdX Foundation (https://www.dydx.foundation/) and the operations subDAO steward process and tooling, but the binding levers — what the chain runs and how it spends — sit with staked-DYDX voters. Governance here is not an overlay on a protocol; it is the protocol’s upgrade and treasury mechanism, expressed in the chain’s own consensus.

How Caper approaches this dYdX makes governance Sybil-resistant by tying it to staked capital and delegating it to a validator set: your vote is your stake, and if you do nothing your validator votes for you. It is a coherent design for a chain that must also be secured — but the decisive factor is still DYDX bought on a market, and the default resting place of power is the validators. Caper (/wiki/foundations/what-is-a-caper) folds a different quantity into the weight. A caper member’s vote weight is (t·v)/(V·T) — held tokens t times the member’s earned soulbound (/wiki/daos/concepts/soulbound-tokens) votes v, over supply V and circulation T — computed by the contract’s compute_vote_weight helper and reused verbatim by exit() to size a member’s treasury share, so the same metric that governs also settles the way out. The vote token is DIVISIBILITY_NONE, minted one per vote, and non-transferable (its depositor role is bound to the component’s own global_caller and its updater is deny_all), so v is an accumulated record of participation that cannot be delegated to a validator, staked for yield, or bought on a market. This is not a claim that holdings do not matter — t is a straight multiplier, so a bag still counts — but a large bag alone cannot capture control the way a whale accumulating staked DYDX can, because the second factor has to be earned one vote at a time. Caper also declines dYdX’s coupling of security and governance: there is no validator set to delegate to and no staking layer, only a flat membership voting a typed treasury.

References - dYdX governance module documentation (https://docs.dydx.community/dydx/modules/governance) — deposit, voting, quorum, thresholds, and vote-weight rules. - dYdX Foundation — expanded utility of DYDX on the dYdX Chain (https://www.dydx.foundation/blog/dydx-token-mechanics) — the ethDYDX→DYDX one-way migration and staking. - The Block (https://www.theblock.co/post/259658/dydx-chain-officially-launches-on-mainnet-as-standalone-cosmos-layer-1) and CoinDesk (https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/10/24/dydx-decentralized-crypto-exchange-open-sources-v4-code-for-upcoming-cosmos-chain) — the standalone Cosmos Layer 1 launch (26 Oct 2023). - Cosmos SDK x/gov module (https://docs.cosmos.network/main/build/modules/gov) — the underlying governance primitive (deposit/voting periods, NoWithVeto, delegator inheritance).