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Selecting a market on dYdX Chain
Selecting a market on dYdX Chain

Selecting a market on dYdX Chain

dYdX Operations Services Ltd. avatar
Written by dYdX Operations Services Ltd.
Updated over 2 months ago

What does selecting a market look like on the v4 software?

As part of the default settings of the v4 open source software (”dYdX Chain”), dYdX Chain supports Perpetuals for BTC-USD, ETH-USD, and many more pairs. Traders can see the full list of available markets by navigating to the “Markets” tab at the top of their screen.

As part of the default settings of the v4 open source software, traders have the option to start trading a market by navigating to the “Trade” tab. To select a market, traders can click on the drop-down arrow next to the current market in the upper left corner.

By default, traders see a list of all current markets available. They can then select the market on which they want to open a position.

  • Traders can also search for a market in the search bar or click on the pre-filters to search for “Layer 1” or “DeFi” markets

Once a market is selected, traders have the option to view the linked resources on the Details tab to better understand the market before opening a position.

  • Whitepaper

  • Website

  • CoinmarketCap

Traders will be able to see key details about a market.

  • Tick Size: Each market has a specified tick size. This is the minimum price movement on the market.

  • Step Size: Step size is the smallest factor allowed for order amounts on the market.

  • Minimum Order Size: Minimum order sizes vary by asset.

As part of the default settings on the v4 open source software, each market has two risk parameters, the initial margin fraction and the maintenance margin fraction, which determine the max leverage available within that market. By default, these are used to calculate the value that must be held by an account in order to open or increase positions (in the case of initial margin) or avoid liquidation (in the case of maintenance margin).

  • Maximum Leverage: Each market has a specified maximum leverage. A trader cannot make a trade that would place their leverage above this limit. To limit risk, maximum leverage decreases linearly with position size after a certain threshold.

  • Maintenance Margin Fraction (MMF): Margin fraction is calculated as a trader’s position notional value divided by equity. If a trader’s equity falls below the MMF, their position will be automatically closed (liquidated) and a liquidation fee of 1% will be assessed. The liquidation fee is paid to the Insurance Fund.

  • Initial Margin Fraction (IMF): This goes hand-in-hand with the Maximum Leverage parameter. Essentially the maximum leverage is 1 divided by the IMF. If the maximum leverage is 50x, then the initial margin fraction is 1 / 50 = 0.02 or 2%.

  • There are two additional parameters openInterestLowerCap and openInterestUpperCap which are not shown on this page, but can be seen from https://indexer.dydx.trade/v4/perpetualMarkets

  • The way this works, is when the total open interest for this market is below openInterestLowerCap, nothing changes. But when it goes above, it causes the IMF to increase linearly reducing the max leverage, all the way up to openInterestUpperCap when IMF reaches 1.0 effectively reducing max leverage to 1x.

Disclaimer and Terms

This document may provide information with respect to the dYdX Chain software, and/or non-mandatory guidelines and suggestions that may help with using dYdX Chain software. dYdX Operations Services Ltd. does not run dYdX Chain validators nor operate or control the dYdX Chain network. dYdX Operations Services Ltd. is not responsible for any actions taken by other third parties who use dYdX Chain software. dYdX Operations Services Ltd. services and products are not available to persons or entities who reside in, are located in, are incorporated in, or have registered offices in the United States or Canada, or Restricted Persons (as defined in the Terms of Use). The content provided herein does not constitute, and should not be considered, or relied upon as, financial advice, legal advice, tax advice, investment advice or advice of any other nature, and you agree that you are responsible to conduct independent research, perform due diligence and engage a professional advisor prior to taking any financial, tax, legal or investment action related to the foregoing content. CoinMarketCap is independent from and unaffiliated with dYdX Operations Services Ltd., and dYdX Operations Services Ltd. is not responsible for any action taken by CoinMarketCap or any other third parties, including content set forth on any third-party websites, such as any links to such content in this document. The information contained herein, and any use of products or services provided by dYdX Operations Services Ltd., are subject to the Terms of Use.

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