Antonio Juliano, CEO of dYdX, on Derivative Market Instant Listings, The Future of Crypto, and dYdX Unlimited | Ep. 391
In an exclusive interview with Cryptonews.com, Antonio Juliano, the founder and CEO of dYdX, discussed decentralized trading, his return as CEO, and the broader trajectory of crypto and DeFi.
Returning as CEO of dYdX
Stepping down as CEO earlier in 2024 allowed Juliano to gain perspective. The six months away helped him realize his passion for the crypto space and how much of his identity was tied to what they’ve built. Juliano admits that he came back with a renewed sense of purpose.
When he returned, I shifted the company’s operations to function more like a lean startup.
“I just realized that we should be operating as a 30-person small startup rather than a 50-person sort of like execs and hierarchy and all this jazz.”
This lean structure allows dYdx to move faster, take bigger risks, and focus on building impactful products. It’s all about operating with agility while staying true to our long-term vision, Juliano says.
dYdX Unlimited: Transforming Decentralized Derivatives
According to Juliano, dYdX Unlimited is a step forward in decentralized tools. Two of its main features are:
1. Instant Market Listings: Users can now instantly list any market they want to trade. This innovation mirrors the success of platforms like Uniswap in spot markets but brings it to derivatives, which never existed before.
2. MegaVault: A high-performance automated market maker that enhances liquidity across all platform markets. It’s also a simple way for users to earn yield by depositing into the system.
These tools make dYdX more customizable, giving users control over their trading while enhancing liquidity and access, claims Juliano.
“Our mission at dYdX is to take these [derivatives] that are the essence of decentralization and then package them into a more professional trading product. So, instant market listings are the first one.”
Centralized vs. Decentralized Exchanges
DeFi products have historically struggled to match the user experience of centralized exchanges.
However, Juliano thinks that instead of asking when DeFi will match centralized exchanges, we should focus on what DeFi uniquely enables. Centralized exchanges will always have performance advantages due to technical trade-offs, but DeFi can provide things they can’t—like instant market listings and true financial decentralization.
“You can launch any market—anybody can be a market maker. No other product in the world, centralized or decentralized, can do that. There are a hundred thousand markets being listed every day: no centralized product and no listing committee could ever possibly handle that.”
Products like Uniswap and now dYdX Unlimited showcase these unique benefits. Juliano says their goal is not to replicate centralized exchanges but to create something fundamentally new and better in certain respects.
dYdX’s goal, per its CEO, is to get to 500 markets listed on dYdX by the end of the year, hopefully, thousands by next year, and then continue increasing exponentially from there.
How U.S. Election Affects Crypto Landscape
Juliano notes that the political climate, including the recent U.S. election, is certainly creating positive momentum. The recent market optimism reflects this, but there’s still work to do. Crypto policy needs bipartisan support to ensure long-term stability. The industry needs to move beyond the antagonistic characters and focus on education—explaining how crypto is building a fundamentally new financial system.
For the industry to truly reach its potential, its leaders also need to think globally. Standout products and leaders have characterized each bull market. However, for crypto to achieve mass adoption, the innovations need to resonate with real-world users.
“I love meme coins, Ansem, and pump. They’re fun. But Ansem doesn’t really hold a candle, at least aspirationally, to what FTX, CZ, and SBF were trying to do here. So, what’s going to be that global-scale product? Who are the global-scale leaders in crypto going to be?”
Juliano is very bullish on SocialFi, which assigns value to things people already care about. Early examples like friend.tech are promising, even if their popularity ebbs and flows. Meme coins have shown the potential for financializing attention, but SocialFi could take this concept further—to people, content, sports, and more.
dyDx CEO agreed to host Matt Zahab stating that crypto needs a product that blends the ease of Web2 with the power of Web3—something like the early days of Facebook or Instagram, when the FOMO was palpable. SocialFi could be that breakthrough.
- How Tether Co-Founder William Quigley Views Crypto Regulations in Trump’s Second Term
- Trump Appoints PayPal Veteran David Sacks as ‘White House AI and Crypto Czar’
- Google’s Gemini AI Predicts the Price of XRP, Pi Coin and Cardano by the End of 2025
- XRP Price Prediction: Investors on High Alert for July 14, 21, 25 – What’s Next for XRP?
- XRP Price Prediction: Institutional Inflows Hit $3.7B – Could XRP Hit $100 in 2025?
- How Tether Co-Founder William Quigley Views Crypto Regulations in Trump’s Second Term
- Trump Appoints PayPal Veteran David Sacks as ‘White House AI and Crypto Czar’
- Google’s Gemini AI Predicts the Price of XRP, Pi Coin and Cardano by the End of 2025
- XRP Price Prediction: Investors on High Alert for July 14, 21, 25 – What’s Next for XRP?
- XRP Price Prediction: Institutional Inflows Hit $3.7B – Could XRP Hit $100 in 2025?