Decentralized Exchange (Dex) Dydx said it bought Pocket Protector, a startup on social jobs that is known for its telegram-based trade bone. The financial details of the deal were not revealed.
The eight-year-old company that is known for his derivatives market also said that the co-founder of Pocket Protector Eddie Zhang, who previously worked at Meta and Amazon, appointed as new president.
The purchase came about a year after Bloomberg reported that Dydx was looking for a buyer himself.
The acquisition positions Dydx for its next growth phase in the increasingly competitive decentralized finance (Defi) derivatives market, which is on social trade to compete with newer, more consumer-oriented platforms, said a Dydx representative in an e-mail in an e-mail. The exchange is the fourth largest derivatives DEX locked by total value (TVL) according to Defillama data.
Pocket Protector, founded in 2024 by Zhang and Kaiser Kinbote, let users act directly in Group Chats, a format that has drawn more than 50,000 users and reached more than $ 1 billion in annual trading volume in the first year. The platform is supported by electric capital and Dragonfly Capital.
Zhang previously worked on Messenger at Meta and was co-founder of the Social App Fam, while Kinbote has invested in various crypto projects at an early stage and has experience in token design and community growth.
“These additions enable us to quickly implement an ambitious route map,” said Dydx founder Antonio Juliano in a statement. “Eddie’s founder mindset and product depth will help us send powerful new experiences quickly.”
Dydx will continue to support the existing tools of Pocket Protector and at the same time plan a stricter integration into its core platform. In a statement shared with Coindesk, the company hinted with upcoming releases with new commercial protocols and user experiences.
