The Hydro Foundation has announced its decision to fork the 0x (ZRX) protocol. In a statement signed by CEO Tian Li, who is also the CEO of Ethereum DEX platform DDEX, the company revealed that even though 0x has contributed greatly to the growth of DDEX into one of the largest decentralized exchange (DEX) platforms on Ethereum, the strategic focus of the project has become bogged down by a series of wide-ranging endeavours, while the basic processes underlying the DEX are still plagued by rudimentary problems like low liquidity and order collision.
An excerpt from the statement reveals that Hydro’s fork will not feature an equivalent to the 0x token, which was recently listed on crypto exchange giant Coinbase.
“Although we are using the term ‘fork’ to give proper credit, we rewrote a large portion of the codebase. We plan to ship a new order schema, an engine capable of true matching, robust market orders, and a fundamentally different liquidity sharing model. The ZRX token will be removed as well, because fee-based tokens create unnecessary friction.”
Focus on Liquidity
Created with an emphasis on liquidity, the new 0x fork will be called “Hydro.” According to Li, as soon as security frameworks and audits are completed, DDEX will switch from the 0x protocol to Hydro. The merit of the project will be determined by the protocol’s delivery. If it fails, he said, DDEX will be “outclassed and quickly become irrelevant” in line with the company’s strict ethos of providing utility that the market wants.
The Hydro protocol is not completely strange to DDEX. It was originally designed as a network layer protocol for high-performance decentralized exchanges and marketplaces, with built-in incentives for coordination. Originally deployed as a thin liquidity incentive layer on top of 0x, the aptly named protocol will place liquidity front and center of its vision for how a DEX protocol should operate as well as significantly expand the scope of the 0x project.
At the time of filing this report, there was no official response to the news of the upcoming fork from the 0x project, which on its part recently announced the 0x Ecosystem Acceleration Program. The program is designed to accelerate the growth of the 0x Ecosystem by expanding the number and diversity of projects being built on the 0x protocol.
According to the information from the 0x project, this will be accomplished by offering access to funding, technical support, and business expertise to budding teams. The support for their development will occur in helping early-stage teams kick off their projects, investing in tooling and programs to support all businesses building on the 0x protocol, and promoting technological innovation through selected research grants.
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