dYdX Plans Telegram Trading in 2025 Roadmap as Earnings Decline

• dYdX roadmap update includes Telegram trading, partner fee share, TWAP orders, and latency cuts.
• Telegram integration enabled by acquisition of Pocket Protector, with co-founder Eddie Zhang joining as president.
• Earnings fell 84% year-over-year, dropping from $20.1M in Q2 2024 to $3.2M in Q2 2025.
• TVL dropped to $312M, down from a $1.1B peak in 2021.
• New features: social logins, USDC–DYDX swaps via Osmosis, customizable fee tiers.

Decentralized exchange dYdX has unveiled its 2025 roadmap, highlighting plans to launch Telegram-based trading in September alongside new incentives and technical upgrades. The update comes as the platform works to recover from declining earnings and a shrinking user base.

According to the roadmap, the Telegram integration follows dYdX’s July acquisition of Pocket Protector, a social trading app. As part of the deal, co-founder Eddie Zhang joined dYdX as president. In his roadmap letter, Zhang stressed the importance of strengthening dYdX’s competitive position in order to capture more market share and deliver long-term value.

Financially, the platform has faced challenges. Data from DefiLlama shows that Q2 2025 earnings dropped to $3.2 million, an 84% decline compared to the $20.1 million posted during the same quarter in 2024. Its total value locked (TVL) has also fallen sharply, standing at $312 million as of August 2025—down from a peak of $1.1 billion in late 2021. The exchange previously laid off 35% of its workforce in October 2024, as leadership sought a new direction.

The roadmap outlines several upgrades designed to improve incentives, efficiency, and user experience. Contributors of trading volume and liquidity will soon be able to earn up to 50% of protocol fees through a partner fee share program. Advanced order types such as scale and TWAP orders will give traders greater flexibility, while the addition of designated proposers is expected to reduce latency and speed up transaction processing.

On the user-facing side, dYdX plans to introduce social logins, direct USDC–DYDX swaps via Osmosis, and customizable fee tiers offering reduced trading costs. These features are designed to simplify onboarding for newcomers while improving usability for experienced traders.

The update comes at a time when the wider DeFi market is gaining momentum. Total value locked across blockchains reached $158.2 billion in August 2025, up 36.5% since the start of the year. Ethereum remains the leading ecosystem, accounting for nearly 60% of that total.

Final Thought

While earnings are down and TVL has shrunk, dYdX is doubling down on innovation to stay competitive. The move into Telegram-based trading signals a push to capture crypto’s growing social trading trend, while efficiency upgrades aim to keep the DEX attractive to pro traders.

If successful, the roadmap could help dYdX rebound and re-establish itself as a leading player in the decentralized exchange space.