This update outlines key milestones and developments across the dYdX Grants Program as it progressed through the latter part of 2025. As of 7 January 2026, dYdX Grants holds approximately $3.0M in USDC and 5.8M DYDX, reflecting a strong capital position entering the new year.

Throughout Q4 2025, the program emphasized disciplined capital stewardship amid a subdued token price environment. Through a rigorous review of existing grant agreements - renewing high-impact initiatives and terminating underperforming or non-core commitments - the program achieved meaningful cost efficiencies while preserving long-term funding capacity.

As a result of tighter grant sizing, renewal renegotiations, and selective discontinuations, ecosystem grant expenditure has been reduced by approximately $220K per month, equating to an estimated $2.7M in annualized savings relative to the prior program structure.

Program Activity in Q4 2025

During Q4, the Grants Program remained primarily focused on evaluating existing grants for renewal or discontinuation, while selectively approving new initiatives aligned with core infrastructure, developer tooling, and ecosystem growth priorities.

In Q4 2025:

• 10 new grants were approved
• 34 grant agreements were executed
• 26 new grantees were onboarded

Since the program’s relaunch in August 2025, more than 50 grant contracts have been executed, with 40+ active grantees contributing across infrastructure, research, and ecosystem integrations supporting the dYdX Chain.

Existing Grants: Renewals and Impact

dYdX Trading Arena & Incentive Program Operations (CLC)
The Grants Program continued funding CLC at $14K per month to manage and operate the dYdX Trading Arena and oversee trader-facing incentive programs. CLC is responsible for the full lifecycle of trading competitions, including KOL coordination, execution oversight, and reward distribution.

Competitions are hosted both directly on the Trading Arena and in partnership with ecosystem partners such as Crypto.com and THORWallet, expanding participation and reach. In addition, CLC supports community-approved programs including Trading Leagues and the Loss Rebate Program, and was recently appointed via governance to oversee dYdX Surge, consolidating operational ownership of trader incentives under a single contributor.

RPC Infrastructure Operations
The Grants Program renewed support for RPC infrastructure across Asia-Pacific and Europe, including the provisioning and maintenance of dedicated JSON-RPC endpoints. These RPC nodes support critical infrastructure for the dYdX Chain through operating dedicated full-nodes of dYdX Chain, Solana, Base, and Ethereum, ensuring reliable access for users, developers, and integrations.

As part of the renewal process, the RPC footprint was optimized to reduce redundancy while maintaining performance and reliability standards. This resulted in approximately $20K per month in cost savings, improving capital efficiency without compromising infrastructure resilience.

New Grants: Expanding the Ecosystem

OEGS Bare Metal Deployment (Kingnodes)
Kingnodes was funded at $6K per month to operate the Order Entry Gateway Service (OEGS) on bare metal infrastructure. The previous AWS-based deployment cost approximately $35K per month. Following a technical and cost review, OEGS was migrated to bare metal servers, reducing operating costs and generating over $360K in annualized savings.

Since deployment, the bare metal OEGS operated by Kingnodes has demonstrated consistent uptime and low-latency performance, materially strengthening execution quality and reliability for traders.

Validator Responsiveness Grant (20 Validators)
Following governance approval on 13 November 2025 to increase revenue allocation toward the Buy & Stake program - reducing the staking revenue share to 15% - the Grants Program introduced a temporary Validator Responsiveness Grant.

Under this program, eligible validators may receive up to $1K per month, subject to meeting defined service-level requirements, including missed block rates and response time thresholds. To date, 20 validators have opted into the program, supporting operational performance during the transition period.‍

Arbitrage Scanner Integration (ArbitrageScan Developers)
The Grants Program also funded ArbitrageScan Developers to maintain and support the dYdX Chain integration within the Arbitrage Scanner platform. This integration provides traders with access to dYdX funding rates via a dedicated dashboard and enables real-time identification of arbitrage opportunities through the Perpetuals Screener module.

Looking Ahead

Entering 2026, the dYdX Grants Program will continue prioritizing initiatives that accelerate protocol adoption through improved tooling, efficient infrastructure, and high-impact research. Future funding areas include novel products and use cases such as AI agents, yield-generating strategies, and prediction markets, alongside continued support for core ecosystem infrastructure.

We extend our appreciation to ecosystem contributors, partners, and community members for their continued diligence and collaboration. The dYdX ecosystem benefits from a deep bench of technical and operational expertise thanks to you, and we look forward to building on this foundation in 2026 and beyond.