Paradex
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About
Paradex is a high-performance crypto-derivatives exchange built on a Starknet Appchain.
Badges
About
Paradex is a high-performance crypto-derivatives exchange built on a Starknet Appchain.
2024 May 26 — 2025 May 26
2024 May 26 — 2025 May 25
The chart illustrates how "live" the project's operators are by displaying how frequently they submit transactions of the selected type and if these intervals deviate from their typical schedule.
2025 Apr 26 — May 26
Perpetual Options Launch
2025 Apr 1st
Paradex opens perpetual options trading to all users.
Paradex exits Open Beta
2024 Nov 7th
Paradex launches XP Warzone Season 1 and exits Open Beta.
Funds can be stolen if
Funds can be frozen if
Users can be censored if
MEV can be extracted if
There is no mechanism to have transactions be included if the sequencer is down or censoring.
STARKs are zero knowledge proofs that ensure state correctness.
All of the data (SD = state diffs) needed for proof construction is published onchain.
There is no window for users to exit in case of an unwanted regular upgrade since contracts are instantly upgradable.
Only the whitelisted proposers can publish state roots on L1, so in the event of failure the withdrawals are frozen.
Paradex is a All data required to reconstruct rollup state is published on chain
State diffs are publish onchain as blob or calldata on every state update. The state diffs contain information on every contact whose storage was updated, and additional information on contract deployments. From diffs full system state can be recovered. Contracts’ code is not published on L1, but can be trustlessly verified if available elsewhere.
EthereumParadex uses stateful compression since v0.13.4.
There is no non-empty genesis state.
The data format has been updated with different versions, and the full specification can be found here.
Each update to the system state must be accompanied by a ZK proof that ensures that the new state was derived by correctly applying a series of valid user transactions to the previous state. These proofs are then verified on Ethereum by a smart contract.
The system has a centralized operator
The operator is the only entity that can propose blocks. A live and trustworthy operator is vital to the health of the system.
MEV can be extracted if the operator exploits their centralized position and frontruns user transactions.
Users can't force any transaction
There is no general mechanism to force the sequencer to include the transaction.
Users can be censored if the operator refuses to include their transactions.
Regular messaging
The user initiates L2->L1 messages by submitting a regular transaction on this chain. When the block containing that transaction is settled, the message becomes available for processing on L1. ZK proofs are required to settle blocks. Note that the message request can be censored by the Sequencer.
Funds can be frozen if the operator censors withdrawal transaction.
Emergency exit
There is no generic escape hatch mechanism as Starknet cannot be forced by users into a frozen state. Note that a freezing mechanism on L2, to be secure, requires anti-censorship protection.
Ethereum
Roles:
Permissioned to regularly update the state of the L2 on L1. Each state update must have been proven via the SHARP verifier and contains state diffs for data availability.
Permissioned to manage the Operator role, finalize state and change critical parameters like the programHash, configHash, or message cancellation delay in the core contract.
Actors:
- A Multisig with 2/5 threshold.
- Can upgrade with no delay
- Paradex
- A Governor - acting directly
- A Multisig with 3/6 threshold.
- Can upgrade with no delay
- USDC Bridge
- Can interact with USDC Bridge
- disable the withdrawal limit and manage the security agent role that can enable it
- enable the withdrawal limit
- manage critical access control roles related to upgrades and set the proxy governor that can upgrade the implementation
- A Multisig with 2/4 threshold.
- Can upgrade with 8d delay
- SHARPVerifierCallProxy
via
- acting directly with 8d delay
- SHARPVerifierCallProxy
Ethereum
Central rollup contract. Receives (verified) state roots from the Sequencer, allows users to consume L2 -> L1 messages and send L1 -> L2 messages. Critical configuration values for the L2’s logic are defined here by various governance roles.
- Roles:
- admin: Paradex Multisig
- operators: EOA 1
Upgradable call proxy contract through which the SHARPVerifier can be called. A call proxy does not delegatecall and the storage context remains at the target contract. It allows SHARP Multisig to change the otherwise immutable verifier contract with 8d delay.
- Roles:
- admin: SHARP Multisig
Shared Starkware SHARP verifier used collectively by Starknet and other SN stack and StarkEx projects. It receives STARK proofs from the Prover and verifies the integrity of the offchain execution including a correctly computed state root which is part of the Program Output.
Standard Starkware bridge escrow (single token). Withdrawals can be throttled to 0% of the locked funds per 24 hours.
- Roles:
- admin: Paradex Multisig 2
- govAdmin: Paradex Multisig 2
- secAdmin: Paradex Multisig 2
- secAgent: Paradex Multisig 2
- This contract stores the following tokens: USDC.
Auxiliary to the SHARPVerifier contract: Verified ‘memory fact pages’ get stored here. This is important as it registers all necessary onchain data produced by the verifier.
Value Secured is calculated based on these smart contracts and tokens:
Paradex USDC Escrow. The current bridge cap is 60.00 M USDC.
The current deployment carries some associated risks:
Funds can be stolen if a contract receives a malicious code upgrade. There is no delay on code upgrades (CRITICAL).