Jun 23, 2022
An insider’s view of our devnet app
Our devnet was recently launched to a small group of focus group testers. Find out which features we’re working on, and why we kept it private.
Our product team recently launched a private devnet to a closed group of moderators, developers, and traders to help shape our product for our upcoming summer testnet launch.
Our primary goal for this devnet (a private development environment) is to build an early version of our product, and get it ready for testnet (a public demo), after which anyone in our community can test it and give us feedback.
Below, we go through the features that we are working on, to give you an idea of the trading functionality.
What’s our current focus?
We’re working perfecting the critical tasks a trader will perform when they want to quickly and easily buy/sell some tokens.
Here’s a example story how that might go:
A new user arrives at the ZKEX app, with the intention to buy $100 worth of JOE tokens (on the Avalanche chain) using their USDC coins (which are on the Ethereum chain). They will place a market order to buy now, as they believe the price of JOE will rise. Immediately after buying, they place a limit order to sell when the JOE price is 5% higher than what they purchased.
Notice a couple of unique advantages of ZKEX:
- The user will be able to purchase JOE directly, even though their USDC stablecoins are on Ethereum — normally on other DEXs they would need to bridge the coins over to the Avalanche network first.
- They can automate their trades with limit orders to sell when a certain price condition is met — very few DEXs have limit orders.
Here’s what we’ve done so far, keeping in mind the screenshots below are early and will change over time… (✅ = completed / 🚧 = in progress)
User Flow Functionality
✅ Connect Wallet
When users first come to ZKEX, they need to connect their Metamask, and sign-in.
For the testnet, we will only be using the following networks:
- Ethereum — Rinkeby and Goerli testnets
- Polygon testnet
- Avalanche testnet
✅ Create an account
Account creation is free — a ZKEX wallet is created for you.
✅ Deposit Funds to ZKEX Wallet
Users can connect to a faucet to get free testnet tokens into their Metamask, and then deposit them to their ZKEX wallet so they can be traded with in the exchange.
🚧 Execute a Market Order, and then a Limit Order
This is partially done, but needs to be tested.
We have other types of order planned (Stop Market, Stop Limit, Trailing Stop, Take Profit, Take Profit Limit), but these will be added later.
🚧 Withdraw Funds from ZKEX Wallet as a ‘regular’ withdrawal.
This is partially done, but needs to be tested.
We also have a ‘Fast’ withdrawal involving a broker, but this will be added later.
Back-end Functionality
✅ Matching Engine
We’ve created the order book matching engine that connects buy and sell bids and requests.
✅ Market Maker
In line for the testnet, we’ve created an automated market maker that creates buy and sell orders to fill the order book, so users can get an idea of the trading functionality.
🚧 Stablecoin merge
We plan to have 2 tradeable stablecoins on ZKEX:
- USD: a merged coin made up of fully reserve-backed stables (likely to be USDC, BUSC, HUSD, TUSD, USDP) — almost all tokens will be paired with USD.
- vUSD: minted from collateralized stables and stable LPs (likely to be USDT, DAI, 3CRV) — a range of tokens will be paired with vUSD.
vUSD might not be available in the testnet.
Why keep it private?
Since the devnet often needs to be reset or rebooted, and is full of quirks and bugs, it’s easier to manage the expectations of a small group of testers that we’re in contact with. So for now, we’re keeping it private until the product is in good shape.
Wen testnet???
We’re planning to move to an incentivized testnet quite soon — within a few weeks — as soon as our tech team and focus group give the green light.
Building a secure multi-chain DEX is not easy, since the idea and implementation is new, every part of the technology stack and user experience needs to be developed, optimized, and tested over multiple iterations.
Until then, please feel free to take a look at the documentation website to learn more.
