just now
Leading decentralized exchange Vertex Protocol has agreed to join the Ink Foundation, bringing its core infrastructure and team to the Ink ecosystem. The transaction marks a significant milestone for Ink's expanding decentralized finance stack.
The deal will see Vertex cease trading across its current EVM deployments, with plans to launch a new version of the protocol exclusively on Ink. Vertex Protocol operates as a decentralized trading platform known for its high-performance trading architecture and active community.
As part of the transition, the VRTX token will be discontinued. VRTX holders will receive an airdrop of INK tokens at launch, with 1% of the INK supply allocated to Vertex community members. Token holders will also receive enhanced participation in an upcoming INK incentives programme. A snapshot for the airdrop was taken on Tuesday, July 8, with all treasury and non-vested VRTX tokens excluded and burned.
Darius Tabai, CEO and Co-Founder, Vertex
Darius Tabai, CEO and Co-Founder of Vertex, commented:
"This is an incredible moment for the Vertex team and community. As a top decentralized exchange, Vertex has built a strong community. Vertex technology will accelerate the Ink Foundation's goals, provide more opportunity for traders, and represent renewed potential for tokenholders."
Airdrop eligibility and distribution mechanics will be announced at a later date, with the foundation promising to implement industry-best practices for sybil deterrence to limit farming and maximise fairness.
The integration of Vertex's synchronous orderbook engine, perpetuals, and money market stack into Ink represents a significant expansion of the network beyond core infrastructure into application-layer functionality.
The Ink Foundation Board of Directors said:
"Vertex has built one of the most advanced decentralized trading platforms in the space. Bringing what they have built into the Ink ecosystem is a strategic leap forward as we realise the vision for open, onchain capital markets."
The transaction was introduced and advised by Acquire.Fi, a dedicated M&A platform for web3 and decentralized protocols. Ink Foundation was advised by Carey Olsen and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Vertex Protocol launched in 2023 as a decentralized trading platform combining low-latency orderbooks with unified liquidity for spot, perpetuals, and money markets. Co-founded by Darius Tabai and Alwin Peng, the platform delivers what it describes as CEX-grade performance in a decentralized environment through its hybrid execution model and advanced matching engine.
The Ink Foundation is an independent entity that stewards the Ink Layer-2 and its ecosystem, supporting protocol development, ecosystem growth, and token governance to help realise the vision of open, onchain capital markets.
