Glossary
dYdX Chain
An app-specific Cosmos SDK chain operated by the dYdX community to host its perpetual-futures DEX — moved from a StarkEx L2 to its own L1 in 2023.
dYdX v3 ran as a StarkEx-secured Ethereum L2 from 2021 to 2023. v4 launched as an app-specific Cosmos SDK chain: the entire perpetuals exchange, including its order book, runs as application logic on its own validator set with CometBFT consensus.
The motivation was control over fee economics, ordering, and the ability to ship product-specific consensus changes (e.g. for the order-book matching engine) that a general-purpose L2 wouldn't support. The migration was one of the largest app-chain moves in DeFi history.