This is the 18th edition of dYdX Epoch Review, presenting updates from the dYdX community and ecosystem. To learn more, join us onDiscord,Twitter, and theCommunity Forums. A summary of the epoch highlights can be found in this deck and video below.

Key Metrics

Performance Indicators

For Epoch 17 (November 22, 2022 15:00 UTC - December 20, 2022 15:00 UTC). No addresses were identified as wash trading during Epoch 17.

Trading Rewards

2,876,712 $DYDX were earned over the course of Epoch 17 and will be distributed to 3,264 traders. This is consistent with Epoch 16 where 3,256 traders were eligible for trading rewards.  Learn more about the trading rewards program in our documentation, or our blog posts.

Liquidity Provider Rewards

1,150,685 $DYDX were earned over the course of Epoch 17 and will be distributed to 65 addresses who were eligible for LP rewards in Epoch 16.

57 addresses (47 existing and 10 new) did more than =>0.25% threshold in Epoch 17. Learn more about the LP Rewards in our documentation, or our blog posts.

Safety Module

Currently, only 12M $DYDX from 4,190 users is staked to the Safety Module. The safety module was effectively wound down in Epoch 15, and any $DYDX staked is no longer earning rewards.

Community Treasury

Approximately 766,703 $DYDX vested in the Community Treasury and 1,726,028 $DYDX accrued in the Rewards Treasury over the course of Epoch 17. The dYdX community now has access to 39M $DYDX that has accrued in the Community Treasury and Rewards Treasury. Learn more about the Community Treasury in our documentation.

Circulating Supply

15.13% of the total $DYDX supply (excluding unearned Retroactive Rewards transferred to the Treasury and the $DYDX vested in the Community Treasury) is considered liquid at the end of Epoch 17. Learn more about the $DYDX allocation in our documentation.

What's next?

• Epoch 17 has ended. Welcome to Epoch 18! Epoch 18 started automatically on December 20 at 15:00 UTC and will end on January 17 at 15:00 UTC.
• The Merkle root was proposed on-chain on December 21 at 23:08 UTC and the 7-day waiting period has begun. Epoch 17 rewards will be claimable here on December 28, at 23:08 UTC (7 days after the end of the epoch plus an additional day and 8 hour delay). Once tokens have been claimed, they can be transferred or delegated to dYdX governance.
• The Merkle tree data, which is a list of (address, reward) pairs, is available here. Under the hood, the Merkle Distributor smart contract (0x01d3348601968aB85b4bb028979006eac235a588) will distribute $DYDX token rewards according to a Merkle tree of balances.

dYdX Governance

On-chain DIPs

• Launch the dYdX Operations Trust: On December 13, Reverie created an on-chain DIP to launch an operations subDAO by establishing a Guernsey Purpose Trust entity with $360,000 in $DYDX from the community treasury. The vote concluded with 82.2M $DYDX (95 addresses) voting in support of the launch, and the proposal has been implemented. The operations subDAO’s responsibilities include building and iterating on a DAO playbook, establishing fiat banking capabilities for non-crypto expenses (e.g. legal expenses, providers, etc.), and managing a DAO communication channel (e.g. Slack or community-managed Discord).
• Winding down the Safety Module: On November 26, the on-chain DIP to wind down the Safety Module passed with 29M $DYDX (152 addresses) voting in support to wind down the pool. The proposal was implemented on November 30, and $DYDX staked to the safety no longer earned rewards as of Epoch 17.

Off-chain DIP

• Re-allocate the stkDYDX weight in LP Rewards Formula: On December 21, Max Holloway created an off-chain DIP to re-allocate the stkDYDX weight in LP Rewards Formula to the ‘MakerVolume’ component. This is a follow up to the snapshot, where 16.2M DYDX (99.97%) across 883 addresses supported the re-allocation of the weightage. The updated LP Rewards formula is effective as of Epoch 18 on December 20, 15:00 UTC, and more details can be viewed here.

Request for Comments (DRCs)

• On December 5, Considered Finance published a post on dYdX risk parameters and their recommendations on how it should be changed. Read more about the post here, and the in-depth research report they produced here.

dYdX Ecosystem

• dYdX Grants Program (“DGP”) Updates: The dYdX Grants Trust completed Round 17 of funding, which had 2 grants approved for a total funding amount of $56,000. Read more in their blog post.
• Delegation: If you hold $DYDX but have no time to review proposals, consider delegating the proposing power and/or voting power of your $DYDX and/or $stkDYDX to one of theEndorsed Delegates.

General Updates

• On December 20, Antonio, founder and CEO of dYdX Trading, was featured in episode 494 of Blockworks Podcast on understanding trading with leverage. Listen to the interview here.
• On December 13, the dYdX Foundation restarted the ‘Meet the Delegates’ series, and interviewed NTInc and AndyGG, both of whom are endorsed delegates and active contributors to the dYdX ecosystem. Read more about them here.
• On December 7, Cliffton from the dYdX Foundation was featured on a Twitter Spaces hosted by Treehouse Finance to talk about DEXs after CeFi. Other panelists include GMX and Ouroboros Capital. You can listen to the recording here, and review the transcript of the conversation here.
• On December 7, Charles from the dYdX Foundation was featured on a Bloomberg interview where he shared how smart contracts and DeFi can work well with regulators. Watch the interview here.
• On December 2, the Initial Margin Fraction (IMF) for certain markets like 1INCH, CELO and COMP were increased to 20%. This better protects traders from liquidations as well as to keep in line with evolving industry standards. Read more here.
• On December 1, Antonio, founder and CEO of dYdX Trading, was featured in a Blockworks Podcast on when he thinks DeFi will truly compete with CeFi. Watch the interview here.
• The dYdX Foundation hosted several AMAs with dYdX grantees to talk about their completed grants. Featured grantees included:
• ///Oneshoo and their analytics dashboard///
• ///Arr00 and the dydx.vote dashboard which enables gasless voting///