Decentralized Exchanges:

What is ApeX Pro?

ApeX Pro is a non-custodial decentralized trading platform. It functions as a perpetual swap market under a social trading framework that leverages an order book model to ensure speedy, efficient, secure, and transparent trading execution.

The platform is built on the foundation of the ApeX Protocol, which places a high value on decentralization and permissionless interaction. As an alternative to ApeX eAMM (elastic Automated Market Maker), ApeX Pro offers a space where traders can freely participate in a derivative trading experience, providing liquidity on any tokens whilst retaining control of their private keys.

The introduction of the order book model on ApeX Pro, powered by StarkWare’s Layer 2 scalability engine, StarkEx, ensures higher performance trades and an improved user experience. ApeX Pro’s ultimate goal is to establish a social trading platform that benefits traders across the board – providing experienced traders with more avenues for passive income and allowing less experienced traders to learn and emulate successful trading strategies.

Curious about StarkWare projects? see DYDX Exchange here.

Bottom Line: ApeX Pro is a special kind of online trading platform where you have full control over your own assets. It’s designed for a type of trade called a perpetual swap, which is a contract to buy or sell an asset at a certain time but without a set expiry date. This is all done under what’s called a social trading framework, meaning you can learn from and follow other traders in a kind of community.

ApeX is bringing Social Trading to Web3

Social trading has become a significant trend in the financial world, with platforms in traditional finance and the emerging field of cryptocurrencies utilizing this model to promote user engagement and financial growth. However, typical trading models, both in traditional and cryptocurrency markets, are often centralized, leading to limitations and vulnerabilities, including the risk of losing control over one’s assets and privacy.

ApeX Pro offers an alternative to these problems by enabling social trading within a decentralized and permissionless network. This approach provides traders with more control, security, and flexibility, responding to demands for faster, more efficient trades and access to new trading technologies.

What is Social Trading?

Social trading is an approach that leverages social networks and interactions among traders. It allows novice traders to learn from and follow the trading strategies of more experienced traders within a community, promoting knowledge sharing and collaborative growth.

However, traditional social trading platforms have limitations. They often involve centralized authorities, leading to added costs, limited access due to identity verification requirements, and potential security and privacy risks. This model involves multiple intermediaries, each adding complexity and costs to the trading process.

ApeX Pro and Decentralized Social Trading

ApeX Pro aims to bring the advantages of social trading into the world of Web 3.0, eliminating the need for intermediaries. It offers a platform for social trading in the crypto-derivatives market, where traders can engage with others to improve their trading performance and earn rewards.

The platform’s goals are to:

1. Promote Web 3.0 social trading: ApeX Pro aims to drive the development of social trading within Web 3.0, offering a scalable network with deep liquidity.
2. Facilitate Open Engagement: The platform allows traders to interact openly with others, sharing strategies, learning, and improving trading performance.
3. Prioritize Security and Ownership: ApeX Pro gives traders control over their trading history and personal data, reducing the risk of security compromises.
4. Incentivize Participation: ApeX Pro offers a new reward token, BANA, to incentivize users’ active participation.
5. Use SoulBound Tokens (SBTs): ApeX Pro uses SBTs, non-transferable tokens that represent a trader’s profile, patterns, and history, to strengthen its social trading model.
6. Fortify Governance with APEX Tokens: The platform uses APEX, ApeX Protocol’s governance token, as a foundation for building other applications within the ecosystem.

ApeX Pro’s approach to social trading within a decentralized and permissionless network addresses many of the limitations and vulnerabilities of traditional social trading platforms, offering traders a more transparent, secure, and engaging platform for trading in the crypto-derivatives market.

Build Soul Bound tokens while trading on Apex Exchange

ApeX Pro offers a unique approach to decentralizing and streamlining the social trading process. With the implementation of Soulbound Tokens (SBTs), the platform transforms traditional social trading models and user profiling methods in the cryptocurrency space. At the heart of this innovative approach is ApeSoul, the platform’s unique SBT.

An Introduction to ApeSoul

ApeSoul is a Soul Bound Token, a sub-type of non-transferable non-fungible token (NFT), introduced by E. Glen Weyl, Puja Ohlhaver, and Vitalik Buterin in May 2022. This token is used as a measure of a trader’s reputation and trading track records on the ApeX Pro platform.

SBTs encapsulate everything social, from credentials and affiliations to achievements across a wide range of industries. In ApeX Pro’s context, it represents a trader’s performance and reputation, housed in wallets called Soul(s). The implementation of ApeSoul eliminates the need for traditional manual verification by a centralized entity, as traders have full control over the creation of their ApeSouls.

The Utility of ApeSoul

ApeSoul is designed with user benefits in mind. Traders can use ApeSoul in several ways:

1. Level Up: Traders can use ApeX Protocol’s native token APEX to increase their ApeSoul level. As traders advance in levels, they unlock greater VIP perks, including higher trading fee discounts and more substantial incentives from trade-to-earn events.
2. Level Down: Traders can opt to decrease their ApeSoul rank. This action allows them to access previously locked APEX at higher ApeSoul levels.
3. Distribution: ApeSouls are created on-chain via zero-knowledge proofs when initiated by traders, ensuring decentralization and security.
4. Burning: Traders can opt to burn and destroy their ApeSoul and corresponding Soul via smart contracts on the ApeX Protocol.

ApeSoul as a Digital Identity

Beyond these primary functionalities, ApeSouls also serve as a unique digital identity (DID) for traders. Each ApeSoul is linked to a trader’s trading profile, encompassing data such as trading volume, number of trades, open interest, ranking, and profits.

This integration paves the way for a more advanced form of social trading. By evaluating the data stored on a trader’s ApeSoul, ApeX Pro can automatically identify “Principal Traders” in the community, thereby offering less experienced traders the opportunity to observe and execute trades based on these experts’ trading activity.

By investing time into ApeX Pro, traders not only engage in a decentralized, privacy-preserving environment but also take part in the dawn of Web 3.0 social trading, powered by the innovative functionality of ApeSoul. This gives traders an added layer of control, autonomy, and privacy that other exchanges might not provide, making ApeX Pro a compelling choice for traders interested in leveraging the benefits of decentralized social trading.

Apex Exchange Ecosystem Tokenomics Explained

The ApeX Protocol operates on an ecosystem of tokenomics that utilizes two tokens: APEX and BANA. This token ecosystem is structured to incentivize community participation, facilitate governance, and foster a robust trading environment.

APEX Token

APEX is ApeX Protocol’s native governance token. A maximum supply of 1 billion APEX tokens is available, serving several key utilities:

1. Governance: APEX token holders have the power to submit and vote on protocol governance proposals, giving the community control over governance and protocol parameters.
2. Protocol Incentivization: Users can earn APEX tokens through participation rewards and liquidity mining on the ApeX protocol, encouraging active participation.
3. Staking: Users can stake APEX tokens to earn more rewards in APEX.

The token allocation is designed to encourage a healthy and sustainable ecosystem. 23% of the total supply is allocated to the core team and early investors, subjected to a one-year cliff following the token generation event and a subsequent two-year linear vesting period. The remaining 77% is for the broader ApeX DAO, mainly allocated towards participation rewards, ecosystem building, and liquidity bootstrapping.

BANA Token

BANA is a trade-to-earn reward token distributed among traders based on their participation and performance on ApeX Pro. It’s created using an allocation of 25,000,000 APEX from the ApeX Protocol treasury, initially minting 25,000,000,000 BANA at a redeem rate of 0.001. After a minimum lock-up period of 12 months, remaining BANA can be converted back to APEX pro-rata.

The minting of additional BANA tokens, especially if the initially minted BANA tokens are completely distributed within the 52-Week Trade-to-Earn event, will be subject to approval by APEX holders via governance. Additional BANA will be minted at a locked BANA to APEX ratio after a buyback occurs.

BANA is distributed to participating traders during each trading event, or epoch, based on factors including total fees paid and rewards distributed for the current trade-to-earn round and previous rounds. Rewards from each epoch can be claimed on the 4th day of the subsequent epoch.

BANA Buyback & Burn

ApeX Pro commits 50% of its transaction fees towards a Buy & Burn Pool (BBP). This pool will frequently conduct BANA buybacks via Time-Weighted Automated Market Maker (TWAMM) swaps, breaking orders into infinitely smaller batches to minimize slippage and gas fees. By default, all BANA under the BBP will be burnt, helping maintain BANA’s price stability.

Trade-to-Earn Events and Staking Program

Weekly trade-to-earn events, or epochs, reward ApeX Pro traders with BANA based on a combination of fees, USDC balance, completion of new user tasks, and BANA-USDC LP Token balance. The protocol may make slight adjustments according to event circumstances.

ApeX Pro is also introducing a staking program. This allows ecosystem participants to stake their APEX tokens to increase earnings and earn a proportional share of the trading fees generated on the platform.

How does StarkWare enhance Apex?

StarkWare’s Layer 2 scalability engine, StarkEx, plays a significant role in enhancing the functionalities and capabilities of ApeX Pro. This integration aims to provide accelerated and cost-effective perpetual contract trades while maintaining robust liquidity, market depth, and transparency.

Enhanced Security and Privacy

StarkEx uses cryptographic proofs and a system called Validium to validate transaction batches securely. This leads to more efficient non-custodial trading with improved user performance and experience. StarkEx uses STARK proofs, a type of zero-knowledge proof technology, to ensure the integrity and availability of on-chain data. These proofs are published directly to Ethereum smart contracts for verification, offering maximum security while preserving privacy.

The system only makes balance changes visible, which safeguards traders’ personal transaction data and activities. As a result, the ApeX Pro trade settlement capacity is increased, securing the validation of every transaction on the platform without compromising privacy.

Broadened Multi-Chain Support

ApeX Pro, bolstered by StarkEx, supports tokens from the Ethereum network and EVM-compatible chains. This cross-chain support facilitates deposits and withdrawals, granting traders access to a broader array of assets and trading pairs, thereby offering more opportunities to diversify their portfolios.

Reduced Fees and Increased Leverage

Integration with StarkEx allows ApeX Pro to overcome common challenges such as high gas fees and prolonged settlement times. With enhanced scalability, transactions become more efficient and cheaper. Moreover, traders can execute trades with up to 30x leverage, optimizing trade sizes and speed. This allows traders to maximize earnings while using less starting capital.

In summary, the integration of StarkEx into ApeX Pro boosts the platform’s performance in several areas, including security, privacy, multi-chain support, and cost efficiency, providing traders with a better and more flexible trading experience.

Should You Trade On Apex Protocol’s Apex Pro Exchange?

Trading on ApeX Pro presents a unique value proposition that extends beyond traditional cryptocurrency exchanges. The platform leverages innovative technologies like Soulbound Tokens (SBTs) to reshape the social trading landscape, offering unprecedented opportunities for traders to earn and grow.

Key differentiators for trading on ApeX Pro include:

1. Future-Proof Functionality: ApeX Pro is positioned at the forefront of technological innovation in the trading world. The platform’s integration of SBTs, particularly ApeSoul, into its model is a testament to its forward-thinking ethos. In the future, the platform intends to further expand its use cases, potentially leading to the tokenization of data income and realization of social influence.
2. Rewarding Performance: Top-performing Principal Traders on ApeX Pro can earn additional rewards through a two-pronged incentive scheme. The platform values not only the profits a Principal Trader earns but also their social influence, as measured by their follower count. This ensures that expert traders are incentivized to share their knowledge, grow their following, and thus contribute to the vibrancy of the ApeX Pro community.
3. Recognition Program: ApeX Pro also runs a Leaderboard Badge Program. Here, Principal Traders are rewarded with digital badges based on their performance and ranking. These badges represent the growth of a trader on the platform, offering a tangible symbol of their accomplishments and reputation.
4. Enhanced Security and Scalability: The integration of StarkWare’s Layer 2 scalability engine, StarkEx, with ApeX Pro bolsters the platform’s capacity for secure, fast, and efficient trade settlement. This is facilitated through cryptographic proofs and Validium technology, offering users a seamless trading experience while preserving privacy.
5. Rich Tokenomics: The dual token model of APEX and BANA, alongside the unique ApeSoul, creates an ecosystem where traders can participate in governance, earn rewards, and establish their trading reputation.

Overall, ApeX Pro presents a robust, community-centric trading environment. Its focus on rewarding performance, coupled with the use of state-of-the-art technology for enhanced security and scalability, makes it a compelling choice for traders seeking to capitalize on the innovative aspects of decentralized social trading.