Vertex Joins the Crypto Platform Fray

Fragmentation continues at a great pace in the cryptosphere with yet another firm announcing a decentralised exchange (DEX).

Vertex Protocol says it has launched a venue for trading crypto spot and derivatives on the layer 2 solution for the Ethereum network, Arbitrum, claiming it has a latency of 10-30 milliseconds, which “rivals leading centralised venues (CEX) and surpasses any currently available DEX”.

The firm claims the new offering brings together multiple market structures into one. “The combination of an off-chain orderbook layered on top of an on-chain automated market maker (AMM) on a decentralised, self-custodial exchange delivers the benefits of a centralised exchange without the drawbacks,” it states.

It also offers Vertex’s integrated money market, borrowing and lending wBTC and ETH with spot margin that enables capital deployment across cross-margined accounts.

“When setting out to build Vertex, we put together a team of traders and other financial industry veterans to create a robust, best-in-class venue,” says Vertex Protocol co-founder Darius Tabatabai. “Vertex is the realisation of more than a year’s worth of market research and development work, and we couldn’t be more excited to bring it to life at such an important time in the growth cycle of the digital asset industry.”

Vertex is the latest firm to highlight the increasing scrutiny facing CEXs from users that have become wary of centralised custody in the wake of the FTX collapse last year. It cites research that found non-custodial wallet users grew significantly last year, and are expected to continue growing through the rest of the decade to reach nearly $50 billion in total assets by 2030.

“Individuals and businesses are increasingly looking at DeFi as an alternative to the flawed centralised exchange model,” Tabatabai argues. “We believe Vertex offers a viable alternative with similar liquidity and speed, along with better capital efficiencies than incumbent options currently available.”