The liquidity for all the Perpetual markets comes from our own exchange which uses cryptographically-signed off-chain messages to establish a valid orderbook. Orders can be placed by users using the Trade sidebar or programmatically via the API.

Currently, dYdX leverages a hybrid infrastructure model utilizing non-custodial, on-chain settlement and an off-chain low-latency matching engine with order books. This means that dYdX delivers an institutional-grade, liquid, and low slippage trading experience for the DeFi world. Our approach reduces the barriers to entry for market makers to participate and provide liquidity sustainably over the long-term. When market makers submit a trade and it is matched, settlement is deterministic.

So far, market makers on dYdX have been primarily algorithm-focused (using APIs), and they have primarily been from the DeFi space. We are seeing increased appetite from market makers active in the CeFi (centralized finance) space. The dYdX team has developed robust APIs for market makers and developers, in order to provide a scalable experience and programmatic access to the marketplace. Please read our developer documentation here: https://docs.dydx.exchange/

If you are interested in market making / providing liquidity, feel free to contact us at - [email protected].

You can read more about our authors here.