dYdX has decided to stop its controversial promotion, citing “overwhelming demand.” The swift cancellation is a response to the significant backlash received from the community in response to the demand for a face recognition scan to be eligible for the deposit bonus.
What exactly is dYdX?
At this time, dYdX is the preeminent leader among decentralized exchanges that offer everlasting trading. Users can trade directly with one another on the dYdX platform, which is powered by smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.
dYdX is a non-custodial and decentralized platform for margin trading that offers synthetic exposure to crypto assets. On top of the fundamental assets, known as ERC-20 tokens, perpetual contracts are constructed. As a consequence of this, dYdX makes it possible to create new asset classes, the value of which is derived from the assets that are underpinning them.
An Overview of dYdX
dYdX is a decentralized exchange that was constructed on the Ethereum network. It provides users with essential financial instruments such as perpetual, margin trading, spot trading, and lending and borrowing capabilities. dYdX provides traders with off-chain order books that are settled on the blockchain. It also gives traders the ability to short-sell tokens, expand their exposure by longing with leverage, or collect interest on deposited tokens so that they can move rapidly. dYdX makes use of StarkWare’s Layer 2 to do away with the need for trading while trusting a centralized exchange. As a result, it combines the security and transparency of a decentralized exchange with the speed and use of a centralized exchange.
The controversial campaign
The decentralized cryptocurrency derivatives exchange dYdX has announced that it has discontinued its controversial $25 initial deposit bonus promotion. This comes in the wake of a wave of criticism directed against the exchange’s insistence that new members provide face recognition.
The exchange, on the other hand, only said that “overwhelming demand” was the basis for the short-lived promotional campaign, which was terminated on Thursday “effective immediately.” The promotion in question went live on Wednesday, and it promised new customers a bonus of $25 if they deposited at least $500 into the platform.
The only catch was that they had to agree to undergo a “liveness check” via webcam to authenticate their identity, which caused several members of the community to feel uncomfortable. After what was supposedly enrolling thousands of new customers, dYdX announced that it will halt the promotion “due to highly overwhelming demand.” This was around 24 hours after the first announcement.
The underestimated popularity of the ad campaign
The group that is responsible for the DEX did not specify how long the promotional effort would run when the first announcement was made; however, they did admit that they did not have any idea about the attention that the campaign will receive.
Notably, dYdX did not address the backlash from the community in its most recent tweet; however, in an earlier post, the company defended its utilization of the facial recognition software by stating that it was only used to verify that users were not creating multiple accounts to qualify for the bonus.
Final Thoughts
Some members of the community don’t buy it, with some assuming that the cancellation was mostly the consequence of the disagreement, while other members have voiced issues with the platform’s use of such technologies in the first place. Adam Cochran, a contributor to Yearn. finance tweeted to his 153,100 followers that he will be leaving the platform and selling his DYDX tokens until he sees “meaningful changes there:” even though he has been a major advocate for dYdX in the past, Cochran stated that he will be leaving the platform.
