Internet Computer Protocol can run an entire crypto exchange 100% on-chain. That is an absolute game changer, and Multidex is showing this off at multidex.ai. In my view, this is one of the single biggest reasons to be hyped about ICP right now. Let's dive into this and see what it means, because if you've seen that DFINITY is putting Multidex out, you might not understand what a big deal it is.
Multidex Versus the Rest of Crypto
First, let's compare what Multidex can do versus what the rest of crypto is doing. Obviously, centralized exchanges are just garbage. You are having to trust them for everything, there's no transparency, and there are enough centralized exchanges already that we don't need any more. Right now there's been a lot of excitement about Hyperliquid, dYdX, and Ethereum DeFi. Multidex is so vastly superior to all of that, in my opinion, that there's huge value that can come from it. So let's look at the difference between "100% on-chain" and what a true decentralized exchange actually means.
"On-chain" is a claim. This is straight from the Multidex documentation at multidex.ai, under the docs and launch section, where you scroll down and read it: on-chain is a claim almost everyone makes and almost no one fully meets. Multidex means it literally. The matching engine, the order books, the custody, the prices, and the front end you're reading are all canister code on a public network. That is so insanely bullish for ICP. What's amazing is that DFINITY just built this with AI as one of the many things they're doing. So let's compare what they quickly built with AI, and could be launching any time now, against Ethereum DeFi.
Why Ethereum DeFi Front Ends Are a Liability
On Ethereum DeFi, the contracts may be on-chain, but the front ends aren't. The websites run on for-profit companies' ordinary servers, which can change, gate users, or disappear. Why does that matter? If you've tried to use things like Hyperliquid or various Ethereum DeFi exchanges, you may have noticed that if you're in certain countries, you get restricted. A truly decentralized exchange that is fully on-chain is not going to country-restrict you, and it's not going to suddenly change or disappear either.
Because the website with Ethereum DeFi is where you actually sign transactions, if anybody hacks the website, the traders are directly at risk. With AI hacking, websites being hacked, especially anything involving Ethereum DeFi, are extremely lucrative targets to hack and make a lot of money from. That makes those sites expensive to maintain and secure, with a high probability of a loss, whether that's the loss from how expensive and difficult it is to maintain and secure against AI hacking, or the loss when it actually gets hacked. You have all these different vectors: a compromised domain, an injected script that can cause you to lose money even when you're on the official website, not to mention all the phishing attacks using fake versions of the same website.
Here, with the app on ICP, Multidex, which is in play mode right now, can have the exchange served directly by the canister. There's no company-run website in the middle to compromise. On Ethereum DeFi you can also get front-run by validator nodes ordering transactions, which is what's happening a lot under the name miner extractable value. On Multidex the exchange is served directly by the canister instead.
Hyperliquid: Closed Source Is Not Decentralized
So let's compare now to Hyperliquid, which has gotten an undeserved amount of hype, except for the branding. Look at the reality of it versus the gigantic market cap and all the hype. Somebody in my chat at jerrybanfield.com said that Trump just mentioned it, and who, how, and why that happened is sketchy and easy to predict. Who close to him has a bunch of money in it?
Hyperliquid is fast, but it runs on what amounts to a dedicated, purpose-built cluster and is entirely closed source. No one outside the company can see it. The traders must place their full faith in the operator. How, in anyone's mind, is that decentralized? When the code is closed source and you have to have full faith in them, it's ridiculous. You can't verify the matching rules or the fees, or whether the house quietly advantages itself. It does not run on a general-purpose network, whereas Multidex runs on a general-purpose network and is open source. So Multidex on ICP is a real version of what Hyperliquid is essentially pretending to be: decentralized, but not actually offering it when you dig into the details. So typical for crypto.
dYdX: Off-Chain Matching With No Transparency
Then compared to dYdX, the order matching happens off-chain in an engine the operator runs, and only the settlement touches the chain. So the rules that decide whose order gets filled first and in what order are not public, and there's no way to have transparency around that. Multidex matches fully on-chain with rules that use public code and orders that are staged, so there's no queue to jump and release priorities aren't invisible.
This is so technically superior to everything else that exists that I think it's a clear choice for anyone who truly wants the best trading experience. The question is, who cares about the best trading experience? Are people just going off marketing? Well, there's definitely a subset of traders who will find these properties extremely attractive. And the more problems there are with these other exchanges, whether it's getting hacked, people getting ripped off, transactions being front-run, or trust issues, all of these are full of potential problems and reasons they could dump and go to zero, and any of those problems will feed straight into Multidex.
What Multidex Means for ICP Holders
Now for ICP holders, here's a key point. The exchange collects fees into a treasury that first pays for its own compute, so it fuels itself when no operators subsidize it. Beyond that, the design intent is public good. Once the treasury exceeds a set threshold, further gains are used to burn the ICP token, reducing supply and benefiting every ICP holder. The exchange doesn't enrich an owner, whereas Hyperliquid is massively enriching its owners. The entire value of all the publicly held Hyperliquid tokens is a fraction of what the owners and insiders already have. Meanwhile, Multidex is burning ICP, and to govern it, you'll be voting on the Network Nervous System. So ICP becomes the governance token for Multidex on top of everything else ICP already is.
This was written by AI, and it shows the properties of the ICP infrastructure that are special, because someone else could come build the exact same thing if they wanted to. Instead of putting it straight on the NNS, they could put their own token behind it. So this is a proof of concept for somebody else who might have some money, want to market it, and profit off it. They may just build their own version of this directly on ICP too. That's just another reason today to be insanely bullish on ICP. This is so special, and so far past what anybody else is doing in crypto.
You can see how disingenuous almost everything and everyone is in crypto, promoting an exchange like Hyperliquid as decentralized when all the code is closed source, there's almost no transparency, and insiders are making almost all the money, while all these people voluntarily do marketing for it and talk about how great it is. It's insane. ICP allows anyone to just build an exchange like this too, and DFINITY has simply led by example.
From Technology to Products
What is special about ICP? Multidex is one single product. Dominic said a while ago that the first thing they had to do was get the technology to a critical threshold where it can do everything you need it to do. For most of a decade, DFINITY poured most of its resources into advancing the tech. Over the last year or two, there's been a shift, where now the tech is good enough to do almost anything you want it to do. Now you need products. Multidex is a product that could be huge. Caffeine AI is another product. Cloud engines, another product. This is spiraling, this is snowballing, where there are so many products and so many ways to win. Something amazing is going to happen.
I Love a Leaderboard
Here's an example of something that's awesome because of this setup. I love a leaderboard. Multidex right now has just a play leaderboard, but can you imagine what that becomes? I just talked to a guy yesterday who is number one on the leaderboard on my website now, and I'm very grateful. He came in and dropped about $300 in a single day on jerrybanfield.com. He paid for the chat at jerrybanfield.com/chat, and then he went in and paid for one of my talk-to-me-now options, where you can talk to me right now for 10 minutes. He bought that to start, and then he was having a good time, so he bought the talk-to-me-now for 30 minutes twice more after that. Now he's number one on the leaderboard because he spent $327 on jerrybanfield.com yesterday, which I'm very grateful for. He found me through my videos on X.
Where I'm going with that is: imagine someone like him, who trades a lot, having a platform where he can show off his trading profit against everybody else who's trading. Because it's on-chain, you can set things like this up and show off a leaderboard. And keep in mind, anyone could use AI to build something like this too.
So for example, if I were to, which I don't, because I'm a content creator and I'm in Florida with regulations and all that stuff, but imagine anyone else who maybe has some money lying around, a few million, and they look at Multidex and say, "I'm going to build my own version of this, it's going to have my token behind it, and I'm going to pay people to market it." Somebody could just build their own. You don't understand how difficult it is to build something like this normally. I will give Hyperliquid and dYdX credit on this point, because when you're using all that off-chain infrastructure and all these websites, there's so much security and so many things you have to address. You can use AI coding, but then you also have to do a whole bunch of coding and solve a whole bunch of problems with real developers. Because Multidex is all on-chain, you can just build all of this with AI. That means somebody else may come in and build this too.
So on ICP, it may become the chain. It may take off because everybody starts building their own version of Hyperliquid, or dYdX, or Multidex, all on ICP. And here's the amazing thing: ICP is set up so you can use native Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. You don't have to stop using all those other tokens. You can just build all that stuff, stablecoins included. It's all sitting there, and you can build it with AI. So Multidex is something that by itself could be huge, and it's proof of what ICP can do, which is huge. People who want to make money are going to see this, look at it, and prepare to make themselves rich. To me, the future is built on ICP, and Multidex is a very good indication of what's possible.
All Roads Lead to ICP
Other people are going to copy it and build their own versions, because it's just too easy to use AI to make your own version of Multidex, and there are huge amounts of money somebody can make off it. The leaderboard is just too incredible. It's a feature that would make a lot of money and would attract people to actually trade on it, because they'll want to show off. Imagine if you had all this profit and, even if you didn't show anyone publicly, you could just sit there and check the leaderboard and compete with all these other people on the money. Like the guy I talked with yesterday, that's someone who might really appreciate being able to do that. So there's a clear reason why people would move over to Multidex.
ICP feels like the game is rigged, like we are the house in the casino. All these other coins and crypto are the casino, and all roads are leading to ICP. This is why I'm all in on ICP. It's why I don't hold anything else, and why I don't care what happens with anything else in crypto. This is where the action is going. This infrastructure is incredible, and Multidex is one example of that. This obviously wasn't financial advice, and obviously I'm an ICP maxi, and this is all I do.
If you'd like to chat with me and pop up on the leaderboard on jerrybanfield.com, you'll notice that my entire website is built with AI on the ICP blockchain too. You can join the chat and talk with me and everybody else in there.
You can check out my Officer Banfield book.
I do dating coaching as well.
I do YouTube coaching, and I have one-on-one calls. If you see that I'm online, like I was today, you can just jump into a call. The call yesterday started within 15 minutes or so of when the buyer paid, and he paid for everything in ICP.
If you've got a crypto video or project you're working on, or you've built something on ICP you want to show off, I'll do a sponsored crypto video with you.
I've also got my Skool community.
And there are tips if you want to show off on the tip leaderboard as well.
Thank you very much for reading. For more on why I'm all in, see my ICP Crypto playlist. Let's get excited, and let's stay excited every day about ICP.