Idex takes a unique approach to combining an order book model with an automated market maker. To execute trades, Idex uses an off-chain trading engine that matches the performance of centralized exchanges and guarantees sequencing. Trades are processed in an off-chain order book. Only when a trade is matched and executed, the transaction is settled on-chain.

In doing so, users benefit from not having to pay additional network costs for placing and canceling orders. Furthermore, placements are processed in real-time, enabling more advanced trading and market-making strategies like stop-loss, post-only and fill-or-kill.

The automated market maker guarantees liquidity by displaying virtual limit orders in the order book together with real limit orders to visualize AMM liquidity in the order book model. Orders are usually settled as AMM only or as a hybrid between the AMM and limit order liquidity.

Idex uses smart contracts to decentralize fund custody and trade settlement. To enable the order book model, the smart contract executes trades off-chain but trades are settled on-chain with a delay. The smart contract acts as escrow and restricts the movement of funds until the settlement is finished. Furthermore, trades are sequenced, and a special function in the smart contract ensures funds cannot be restricted indefinitely. Moreover, the smart contract enforces ownership and authorization, meaning users maintain custody and can make markets without additional infrastructure.

The total supply of IDEX is 1 billion IDEX. The token distribution is as follows:

40% - market maker rewards, marketing campaigns, and airdrops

10% - IDEX members

25% - team

10% - future employee token pool

10% - future use

5% - business expenses

Users can also run a lightweight node and stake their IDEX if they have a minimum of 10,000 IDEX.

IDEX is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. The DEX has been audited by Quantstamp, a leader in blockchain security that has worked with reputable projects such as Maker, Compound, and Avalanche. Idex has so far proven to live up to its high security standards and has faced no problems with hacker attacks.

ERC-20 is a token standard most new tokens follow when publishing on the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is one of the most popular blockchains and the go-to solution for many decentralized applications and exchanges to launch on. It is secured by a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism that requires validators to stake 32ETH to validate the network. A set of decentralized nodes validates transactions and secures the Ethereum blockchain.

The innovative combination of an order book with an automated market maker has recently seen the price of IDEX explode from under $0.10 to an all-time high of above $0.60. The price has since retreated to $0.30 at the time of writing. However, it seems entirely possible that with more launches on layer one and layer two blockchains and an improving product, Idex can continue its growth path in the long run.

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