This discussion has been open since February and has gained quite a lot of attention from the community. The discussion has been open for quite some time, and due to the high interest, we should move on to voting. As a member of the DAO, I suggest contributors add a vote to snapshot.org and let the DAO finally decide.
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support.
more chains, more revenue.
obvious.
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Yes would like to see this included in our roadmap.
As I’ve had more time to think about this, the more I think Gmx should focus on asset listings, not chains. Arb and OP are still the main perpetual arenas. Gmx first needs to show an advantage in asset listing, LP profitability, and trader experience, so I think new chains should take a backseat. Perps volume over the last 12 months is largely driven on incentives, and when incentives bleed, so does volume (see: Avax).
Why move to a new chain in the first place
- Increased user base / exposure to new market participants
- Decrease protocol’s reliance on a single blockchain
For #1. we wouldn’t be creating new demand for perps. The most sticky chains already have perps protocols so we’d essentially be trying to directly compete with a less significant offering. The additional user base would be marginal. The big gains from user base or volume are going to come from mass adoption and/or significant MMing / traders who want to use the product. If you agree with that take, we should really be creating a trading experience for larger players, this might involve continually tweaking the perps model. This could mean better UX. Probably both.
For #2. I don’t think this is currently a big enough risk. We’ve seen chains go down over and over and no one really seems to care about this outside of ideologically. This can likely be pushed off. Also, when people advocate for new chains, they’re mostly talking about #1
New participants come from larger traders / MMs. Given GMX’s current model
Drawbacks to deploying on new chains
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Is this even the highest impact feature? I’d say no. We’re probably better off bootstrapping 3-4 new GM pools on arb than we are deploying on a new chain. The time/return payoff is vastly superior. Deploying to a new chain takes about 3 months. 3-4 pools would take a few weeks. Both increase volume and fees, but you can do one of these in 1/3 the time. Given that the GM model is infant, I think we continue to stress test that, rather than try our hand at a new chain we don’t know until we have dedicated teams for chain expansion (low priority imo).
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Using treasury liquidity to bootstrap new pools (unless GMX gets a grant but then you’re sacrificing the important competitive advantage of speed). Money isn’t endless and the more bootstrapping that’s done the more the team needs to manage it’s LPing. The more managing it needs the more people they’ll need unless they set up decent automated mechanisms for LPing (like someone building a GM yield optimizer)
Expansion should occur if/ when x4 comes about. However, give uniswap’s love of taking ideas from others, idk if that’ll happen anymore. But if it does, then I think x4 would be multi-chain
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I believe this is a solid analysis.
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I think it would be good to be on at least 2 viable chains in case one of them has a long-term problem/decline. I wouldn’t count Avalanche as one of those chains right now as it became unusable due to prohibitive fees during the latest inscriptions surge, and that could easily happen again for a significant period. We might be used to dealing with this but if GMX is to really expand it needs to provide a usable system under all conditions.
So I would support GMX being on at least one more chain such as Optimism or Base. One that provides the EVM to make dev times realistic and ideally strong incentives from the chain foundation to deploy. Other than that I agree with you - effort is better spent on new GM pairs, new features and improving UX.
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That’s a valid point too, the inscriptions influx did highlight some of the bottlenecks of the current deployments.
Still believe this would be a great opportunity for GMX to launch on other EVM compatible chains.
Would it be possible to hold all liquidity on one chain and execute trades on another?
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This would be the ideal solution!
Arbitrum as GMX’s home base with the deepest liquid on-chain markets for virtually all top crypto tokens, and the right infrastructure in place to allow smooth trade execution from other blockchains.
It’s being looked into by developers right now, I believe. A complex puzzle, but worth doing right.
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Super interesting. Was there any more discussion on this?
I believe this vision forms the backdrop for a lot of ongoing discussions the devs and BD contributors are having. With potential bridge partners, infrastructure partners, and so on. There are many pieces to the puzzle.
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