Cryptex is a platform that provides crypto users access to a suite of decentralized finance (DeFi) tools across multiple blockchains.
DeFi has become a cornerstone of utility for crypto users. For those looking to use their assets for flexible trading and yield-generating strategies—coupled with freedom from traditional financial institutions—DeFi is an incredibly useful resource. Satoshi Nakamoto imagined Bitcoin could replace fiat currencies for the purposes of transactions and storing value, but money does so much more. DeFi is the natural evolution of that vision.
However, DeFi is not just one thing. It includes spot trading, derivatives trading, various types of stablecoins, asset tokenization, borrowing and lending, yield-generating strategies, and many other common and niche uses. At the beginning of the DeFi movement, platforms focused on doing just one of these jobs well. Aave, for instance, is a large and active lending protocol. Uniswap is a decentralized exchange (DEX) that allows for spot trading of individual tokens.
As the space has matured, more platforms have attempted to collate these functions into one comprehensive place. Cryptex is a platform that offers a comprehensive collection of DeFi services including spot trading, perpetual trading, and automated strategies for earning yield. It additionally tries to improve on competitor products by offering seamless cross-chain interactions. Its CTX token aids in governance of the platform.
How was Cryptex Finance developed?
Cryptex was founded by Joe Sticco and Thomas Matzner. Prior to involvement in the blockchain space, Joe Sticco was an investor. His partner, Thomas Matzner (“Matz”), was previously involved in business development at both startups and larger consumer companies. Sticco and Matz knew each other from previous endeavors, and Cryptex came out of a phone call between the friends between 2018 and 2019.
After building a team, Cryptex’s founders launched the Total Crypto Market Cap (TCAP) token in 2021, which was a synthetic asset meant to track the entire market cap of the crypto market. They viewed this as a way for users to invest in the whole of crypto rather than one coin or another. Later, the platform announced JPEGz, a token meant to grant exposure to the total non-fungible token (NFT) market.
Over the ensuing year, CTX was listed on multiple centralized and decentralized exchanges and reached a trading volume of over $450 million. Then, in June 2023, Cryptex announced “Cryptex v2”, a decentralized perpetuals market that offered leveraged trading of digital assets on Arbitrum’s layer 2 scaling solution. With it, Cryptex announced an incentive program to spur use of the system. This shift in strategy was the beginning of Cryptex’s focus on a more comprehensive DeFi platform, solidified with its announcement of “Cryptex π”, the third iteration of Cryptex Finance.
Importantly, Cryptex in its current form does *not *refer to the older Hong Kong-based company of the same name which released a Bitcoin debit card in 2014, nor does it refer to the Russian exchange operating under the same moniker. These other projects are unrelated.
How does Cryptex Finance work?
There are four basic parts to Cryptex Finance’s DeFi platform. These span spot trading, perpetuals, indexes, and smart vaults and are all offered in different forms by other DeFi platforms. However, Cryptex aims to keep DeFi functionality on one universal site, allowing seamless access to digital asset manipulation.
Spot trading – When people think of decentralized exchanges (DEXes) like Uniswap and SushiSwap, they are generally thinking about spot trading. This means trading one digital asset for another on the same blockchain. Cryptex also offers cross-chain trading, differentiating itself from other DEXes.
Decentralized perpetual trading – Cryptex uses Pyth and Chainlink oracles to allow for low-latency trading. Perpetuals are derivatives that allow for continuous leveraged trading, rather than relying on products with an expiration date (like futures or options). Fees are charged to users for placing orders and upon settlement, in order to help fund the system.
Indexes – Cryptex’s original TCAP token, meant to track the capitalization of the total cryptocurrency market, is a synthetic asset that can be traded by users and is backed by deposits of other cryptocurrencies like ETH. Other indexes are planned.
Smart vaults – These are smart contracts into which users (called liquidity providers, or LPs) can deposit crypto to smooth out the funding of the larger Cryptex ecosystem. To support other aspects of DeFi supported by the platform, like indexes and perpetual trading in multiple markets, locked crypto can collateralize positions with risk. This allows depositors to earn a stable yield in return.
How is the CTX token used?
CTX is a native ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain, but it is also available on both Base and Optimism. There is a maximum supply of 10,000,000 CTX.
The CTX token is primarily used as a means of decentralized governance of the platform. This allows the community that uses Cryptex to guide the development of the protocol and decide on its direction. Addresses with more than 100,000 CTX delegated to them may propose governance actions that translate to the final code of the platform. Changes made through this governance process are subject to the “Timelock”, which is a contract that defines a delay of 2-30 days before code is put into action.
Cryptex essentials
Cryptex is a multi-function, multi-chain effort that consolidates DeFi services into one comprehensive platform.
Though the company was originally founded to support a synthetic asset that followed the total crypto market cap (TCAP), it later expanded to include cross-chain spot trading, perpetuals trading, and more.
The CTX token is used as a community governance token that helps guide Cryptex’s development.