Paradex
Perpetuals, options and spot exchange on Paradex Chain, its own appchain on Starknet, incubated by Paradigm.
Security record: 2 incidents · 1 own fault · 1 repaid in full- Paradex Chain, its own Starknet appchain; positions, entries and PnL are hidden from the public
- Perps on 100+ markets plus dated options and spot, from one unified margin account
- Up to 50x leverage on perps
- Retail orders from the app pay 0% maker and taker fees; API Pro orders pay fees
- XP Season 3: 4,000,000 XP distributed every Wednesday
Seven criteria on a scale of 10, the fee and market numbers computed from the data. Compare it with other perp DEXs only. How we score
- Taker
- 0%
- Maker
- 0%
- Volume a day
- $10M
- Open interest
- $5M
- Rewards 8.0
- DIME live; XP Season 3 pays 4M XP every week
- Taker fee 10.0
- No taker fee is a 10, 0.07% or more is a 1. A venue that earns from the spread tops out at 7.
- Volume 1.9
- Average a day: $5M is a 1, $5B is a 10, on a log scale. Volume past ten times open interest does not count.
- Safety 8.0
- Audited, live since 2023; Jan 2026 glitch liquidations were refunded
- Open interest 3.1
- $1M is a 1, $1B is a 10, on a log scale. Harder to farm than volume.
- Ease 10.0
- iOS and Android apps, bridge built into deposit, stocks next to crypto
- Access 8.0
- No KYC or invite; closed to US and Canada plus sanctioned places
- Open app.paradex.trade and connect an Ethereum, Starknet, email or social wallet
- Go to Portfolio and click Deposit
- Approve USDC and send it to the Paradex bridge; funds arrive after L1 confirmation
- Pick a market and trade from the app to keep zero retail fees
- Paradex XP Season 34,000,000 XP per week
- Is a Perp DEX Safe? Custody, Exits and LiquidationsNon-custodial is a label, not an answer. Six questions to ask any perp DEX about custody, exits, reversed fills, liquidation and audits before you deposit.
- Funding Rate Arbitrage Between Perp DEXs: The Real MathA cross-DEX funding hedge earns by the hour and pays its fees up front. How to work out the net, the break-even time and what can break each leg.
- Maker vs Taker Fees on Perp DEXs: What a Trade Really CostsMaker and taker fees explained for farmers: why the fee is charged on the position, why a hedge pays four times, and when a maker order costs more.
- What Is a Funding Rate on a Perp DEX?What a perp funding rate is, who pays whom, how to turn it into a yearly figure, and what it costs or pays a farmer who holds positions for volume.
- Can You Get Leverage on Polymarket? Options on Prediction Markets, ExplainedConvallax founder Kushal Mungee on options for prediction markets: why leverage breaks, how you price an option on a probability, and why it runs on RFQ.
- Can You Really Get Paid to Hold Your Crypto? Covered Calls, ExplainedCovered calls and cash secured puts turn holding crypto into yield. Rysk founder Dan on how it works, where the catch is, and why RFQ powers it.
Matching runs in the cloud and the chain validates each fill; a fill that fails on-chain checks is reversed. Retail orders have a 300 ms speed bump and a limit of 1,000 orders per day. XP has no stated value and Season 3 rules are still rolling out.
2 incidents · 1 own fault · 1 repaid in full
Past incidents 2
Mithril trading bot breach exposes 57 subkeys. Paradex disclosed that the third-party Mithril trading bot was compromised and attackers got about 57 user subkeys. Subkeys can trade but not withdraw; Paradex revoked them and paused XP transfers, and said core exchange and custody were not breached. Paradex said no customer balances were lost.
Third partyNo user losses
Sources: cryptotimes.io, cryptopolitan.com
Maintenance bug prints BTC at $0, chain rolled back. During planned database maintenance a race condition wrote corrupted market data onchain and reset funding indices, so BTC briefly priced at $0 and accounts were liquidated. Paradex paused, rolled Paradex Chain back to a pre-maintenance snapshot (its first rollback) and published a post-mortem on 23 January. Paradex said it refunded $650,000 to 200 affected accounts from the Liquidator Vault after the rollback.
Own faultUsers lost about $650K across 200 accountsRepaid in full
Sources: cryptopolitan.com, theblock.co, decrypt.co
From the project’s statements and security coverage. Own fault means the project’s code, servers or keys; third party means a vendor, registrar, oracle or issuer it relies on.
