Rating report
dYdX
Grade C, 2.7 out of 5
dYdX is a non-custodial perpetuals protocol where balances stay in user-controlled wallets and an on-chain insurance fund is financed by a 1% liquidation fee; it holds no exchange licence in any jurisdiction, and a March 2024 attack cost roughly $9m, about 40% of the v3 insurance fund at the time.
By Safety Desk. Facts checked against official sources on .
Findings, check by check
Every KripZen grade comes from the same five weighted checks. Here is how dYdX scores on each.
Proof of reserves 30%
Non-custodial: balances stay in user-controlled wallets and are verifiable directly on-chain, so no reserve attestation is needed.
What “Proof of reserves” meansDisclosed
Custody 25%
Non-custodial protocol — it never takes custody of user funds, so there is no hot/cold split to disclose.
What “Custody” meansDisclosed
Regulation 20%
Holds no exchange licence in any jurisdiction; the v4 protocol runs on its own Cosmos SDK chain under community governance, supported by dYdX Trading Inc. in San Francisco and the dYdX Foundation in Zug. U.S. and Canadian users are blocked at the interface layer rather than by any licensed entity.
What “Regulation” meansNot disclosed
Insurance 15%
An on-chain insurance fund financed by a 1% fee on liquidations, verifiable on-chain but with no disclosed balance; a March 2024 attack consumed roughly 40% of the v3 fund, and a March 2025 DAO vote moved $10m USDC out of it to cover operating expenses.
Partial or unaudited
Incident history 10%
Roughly $9m lost in a targeted attack on 5 March 2024, about 40% of the v3 insurance fund at the time; separately, a deposit-proxy vulnerability was exploited by a white hat to rescue about $2m before attackers reached it. One of our two sources recorded no confirmed incident.
Partial or unaudited
The weights are the same for every exchange. Read the full methodology
Fees, products and reach
- Spot fees (base tier)
- Not published openly
- Proof of reserves
- Not found
- Products
- Futures
- Not offered under its own terms in
- United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Myanmar (Burma)
Base-tier fees from the exchange’s own fee page. Your real cost depends on order type, volume tier and spread; try your numbers in the Exchange Fee Calculator
Our dYdX review
dYdX is the only venue here that never holds your money, and the only one with no exchange licence anywhere. Those are the same fact seen from two sides, and the C is what our rubric returns for it.
What checks out
dYdX is a non-custodial perpetuals protocol: balances stay in wallets you control and are verifiable directly on-chain, so no reserve attestation is needed and there is no hot/cold split to disclose. Those are the two heaviest factors on our rubric, and dYdX passes both by architecture rather than by policy — a design where the failure mode of a custodian simply does not apply.
Where the evidence stops
It holds no exchange licence in any jurisdiction. The v4 protocol runs on its own Cosmos SDK chain under community governance, supported by dYdX Trading Inc. in San Francisco and the dYdX Foundation in Zug. U.S. and Canadian users are blocked at the interface layer rather than by any licensed entity — which is a technical restriction, not a supervised one. Under our methodology a failed regulation factor caps the grade at C however well a venue scores elsewhere, and that cap is exactly what is happening here. The on-chain insurance fund is financed by a 1% fee on liquidations and is verifiable on-chain, but no balance is disclosed; a March 2024 attack consumed roughly 40% of the v3 fund, and a March 2025 DAO vote moved $10m USDC out of it to cover operating expenses. That attack cost around $9m on 5 March 2024. Separately, a deposit-proxy vulnerability was exploited by a white hat to rescue about $2m before attackers reached it. One of our two sources recorded no confirmed incident at all.
How to read the grade
The custody risk you take at every other venue on this site is absent here, and it is replaced by smart-contract and governance risk, with nobody licensed to answer for either. That trade is the decision, not the letter.
Sources
Every fact on this page comes from one of these official pages, checked on October 20, 2026.
Where to go next
Other exchanges we've graded
How to read these grades: each is derived from published, checkable disclosures — proof-of-reserves attestations, public regulatory registers, disclosed insurance funds and the documented incident record — using the weighted rubric below. Where an exchange does not disclose something, we mark it unverified rather than assume it. These are not audits and not investment advice; they reflect what was published as of our last review. Cryptocurrency investments carry risk, including loss of principal. Nothing on KripZen is financial advice — always do your own research before buying, trading or moving funds.