Since launching Radix’s first-ever grants program last month, the projects participating in this round have made some incredible progress along their journeys to becoming core builders in the Radix ecosystem. That said, it’s about time we give each of the projects the spotlight.

Over the coming weeks, RDX Works will be offering a deep dive into each of the six projects from the Radix Grants Program Cohort 1. So, without further ado, here’s all you need to know about AlphaDEX: The Radix-native decentralized order book exchange.

‍

What is AlphaDEX?

AlphaDEX will be a decentralized exchange built on the Radix public network, providing an order book exchange experience that aims to be fast, efficient, and secure. The exchange aims to provide a central order book and matching engine that can be seamlessly integrated into a wide variety of applications and is designed to offer a simple, intuitive platform that enables users to trade assets without the need for intermediaries or centralized entities.

The platform offers users that like the convenience and certainty of trading on an order book exchange the ability to do so in a non-custodial way on-ledger. AlphaDEX also offers users that already trade on AMM exchanges on-ledger to have the benefit of more advanced trading strategies that are not possible or easy to implement on AMM exchanges.

AlphaDEX is built on the principle that the people who use the exchange the most should also be the people that benefit from it the most. Therefore the majority of the fees earned on the exchange – up to 90% – are returned to users that contribute to the success of the exchange. 

‍

What makes AlphaDEX different?

‍

Built for builders

AlphaDEX is a platform for other builders to build dApps on, empowering dApps to leverage the AlphaDEX exchange functionality without having to build and maintain an exchange themselves. This also means they can all share in the liquidity and efficiency generated from their combined users rather than splitting the liquidity and trade volume across lots of smaller exchanges. To facilitate this, AlphaDEX consists of 3 layers that allow developers to choose how to interact with the exchange:

‍

• Direct on-ledger interaction with Scrypto components, allowing developers to benefit from the native asset-orientation and composability that sets Radix apart from its competitors
• A REST API and WebSocket server that allows developers to interact with AlphaDEX in a similar way they do when using centralized exchanges
• A javascript SDK which offers the simplest way of integrating AlphaDEX functionality into any app with no knowledge of interacting with the ledger or APIs required. Developers will simply install a module and access the functionality in their app.

‍

Low fees that benefit everyone

To maintain efficiency, AlphaDEX works to ensure fees stay as low as possible and are used to enhance the exchange. To achieve this, AlphaDEX has the following features:

‍

• Max trading fee of 0.5% that automatically reduces the higher the trading volume on a pair
• Liquidity providers (users placing open orders on the exchange) share in the majority of the fee earned when their order is matched. Most of the time, they can execute their trade and earn a fee from it (rather than pay a fee)
• Apps that submit trades to AlphaDEX can earn a portion of the trading fee. Not only does this encourage apps to contribute to the trade volume on the exchange (to increase efficiency), but it also provides them with a source of income without having to charge their users extra.

‍

Who are the founders?

‍

Fred Liebenberg

Fred Liebenberg is a South Africa-based, seasoned finance professional with 25 years of experience in traditional finance. During his career, he designed derivative products, managed institutional investments, and analyzed portfolio manager strategies. In his free time, he has always been interested in coding and fascinated by how we can leverage technology to make daily life more efficient. 

Working in traditional finance gave Fred good insight into how inefficient the financial system still is and how its primary function is to make money for the product provider and only considers the service it offers to the user as a secondary function.

Fred became interested in Bitcoin and crypto in the early years of its development, but it wasn’t until Ethereum introduced the concept of “programmable money” through smart contracts that he really started getting interested in the potential of crypto again. He saw the potential of Web3 to replace many of the inefficient systems in the financial world with automated, trustless smart contracts. 

But it wasn’t all up from there. Fred soon realized that there were still significant obstacles to overcome to enable Web3 to really take off. Slow finality, high gas fees, and poor security made Web3 a technology only useful to early adopters and those much more advanced than the average user. That was until he discovered Radix, the one solution to the problems he saw.

Fred’s goal is to bring the simplicity and security of traditional finance products to Web3 and empower the world to leverage the real opportunity DeFi has to offer.

‍

How did the project get started?

‍

The Seed that Grew

Coming from the traditional finance world, Fred knew that he wanted to build equivalents of some traditional finance products on a decentralized network. While he knew the true potential and value of Web3, he also knew that it was in no shape to compete with the simplicity of use TradFi offered to millions of daily users across the globe. 

Before he could focus on building financial products, he realized that all products would need an efficient way to exchange between and determine a price for tokens. He knew that the traditional AMM exchanges were not ideal for meeting all these needs and that decentralized order book exchanges could not function on the slow and costly networks that existed at the time.

When Fred discovered Radix in 2018, he quickly realized that “Radix has everything that is needed to deliver the promise of a decentralized financial system for the world” and seized the opportunity to combine his love for programming and knowledge of the financial world to rebuild traditional financial products on Radix. In 2022 he quit his job to become a full-time Radix developer and has been building on the network ever since.

‍

Vision

The vision of AlphaDEX is to provide a decentralized order book exchange that is built for the benefit of its users, is fast, efficient, and secure, and ultimately enables the development of more sophisticated DeFi solutions on the Radix network. 

Launching on Babylon will be the first step on this journey.

‍

AlphaDEX will be available with the launch of Babylon Mainnet in Q2 2023. For more information on the project, head to the website, follow the project’s official Twitter account, or join the AlphaDEX Telegram channel.

To stay in the loop with the Radix Grants Program and be first to hear about updates on the upcoming cohort 2, join the developer program.