The Next Decade of On-Chain Trading: AvoDex CMO Michael Discusses Perp DEX, AI Strategies, and Self-Custody Trading

Author: Independent Researcher Jason × AvoDex

Jason: Many people got to know you through AvoDex, but you have been deeply involved in this industry for a long time. Can you introduce yourself?

Michael: I have been working in algorithmic trading and AI market intelligence for over nine years. Starting from Germany, I now live between California and Bali—this way of life itself is a definition of freedom for me.

In the early days, I worked as a market maker and experienced firsthand how market microstructure operates—order flow, liquidity layering, and spread management. That experience gave me a completely different understanding of "depth": it’s not just about the numbers on the board, but how much impact the market can truly withstand during extreme conditions.

Since then, I have founded several projects:

• Deep Alpha One: An AI-driven trading indicator discovery platform focused on the TradingView ecosystem;

• Shadowtrader.io: A media platform for technical analysis traders;

• Next2x.io: An AI-driven early momentum identification system, focusing on spotting assets before they gain mainstream attention.

These projects may seem different, but they all stem from the same question: why can’t ordinary people access the best trading tools in the market? I have been trying to answer this question.

Jason: You have been paying attention to and participating in HyperLiquid for a long time. How did that experience influence your later judgment on the development direction of on-chain trading?

Michael: That was a turning point.

Before HyperLiquid was fully understood by the market, I began to pay attention and participate. That experience made me confident for the first time that a decentralized order book is not just an ideal that remains a concept, but a path that can be realized through engineering. On-chain execution, asset self-custody, and real market depth can coexist.

I didn’t start believing in this path after seeing HyperLiquid succeed; I believed it would be the next step for exchanges even before it was proven.

Jason: From a more macro perspective, how do you view the evolution of the exchange industry?

Michael: I believe there is a very clear historical context.

• The first generation is CEX (Binance, OKX, Coinbase): They solved liquidity and user experience issues, but users had to entrust their assets to the platform and must trust the platform’s risk control, asset management, and clearing mechanisms. After FTX, more and more people realized that there is a layer of counterparty risk that cannot be ignored beyond trading.

• The second generation is AMM and DeFi (Uniswap, Curve): Assets returned to users' own wallets, with on-chain transparency and verifiable contracts. However, when faced with high-frequency trading, leveraged products, and more complex risk management needs, AMMs still have limitations in capital efficiency, depth, and execution experience.

• Next is the Perp DEX, centered on on-chain order books and perpetual contracts: It attempts to combine the advantages of both paths: depth and execution efficiency close to CEX, along with the self-custody and transparency of DeFi. HyperLiquid has already proven that there is real market demand for this path.

This evolution is not accidental. Each round of product innovation responds to the problems that the previous generation of trading platforms did not solve. For me, Perp DEX is not just a new product category, but a signal that on-chain financial infrastructure is maturing.

Jason: You just mentioned that extreme conditions expose the structural problems of centralized platforms. Was there a personal experience that made you realize this model must change?

Michael: Yes. The major drop in the second half of last year had a significant impact on me.

That day, I had positions on several CEXs. When the price dropped rapidly, I wanted to adjust my positions, but some orders could not be executed normally, and transferring assets and withdrawing funds were also restricted. The market was changing, but I couldn’t manage my assets in a timely manner.

In the end, my profitable position was forcibly reduced by ADL. I did lose money, but what I couldn’t accept was not just the loss itself, but the fact that when risk occurred, I didn’t even have the right to fully manage my own assets. ADL is not a temporary accident; it is a mechanism written into the platform's rules. Most users are usually unaware of its impact until extreme conditions actually occur.

At that moment, I realized that this is not just a problem of a single platform, but a structural issue that custodial trading models must face: the platform controls the rules and the users' assets; in extreme conditions, users often can only passively accept the platform's handling results.

After that, I was determined to create an exchange where users' assets would never be touched by the platform. This is also the core reason I joined AvoDex.

Jason: It sounds like these experiences also influenced your later judgment on trading products. Let’s talk about AvoDex; what kind of project are you currently working on?

Michael: The core judgment of AvoDex is that on-chain Perp DEX should not only serve professional traders, but it also should not sacrifice depth to lower the barriers to entry. Both can be achieved simultaneously.

• In terms of liquidity depth: We have developed our own matching engine and continuously optimized system stability and matching efficiency. According to platform data, the cumulative trading volume has now exceeded $2.1 billion, covering 70 trading markets, with a daily peak exceeding $53 million. Depth is very important for real traders— even a one basis point difference in slippage can directly affect the cost of entering and exiting large positions.

• In terms of asset types: We are not only focused on crypto assets but are also exploring on-chain trading markets related to non-listed assets like OpenAI and SpaceX, allowing users to express their judgments on these assets through contracts. The connection between traditional financial assets and on-chain markets is accelerating, and Perp DEX has greater innovative space in product combinations and trading scenarios.

• In terms of AI automated strategies: This is the part I am most excited about, and it is most directly related to what I have been doing for the past nine years. AI in trading is not a gimmick—it is real leverage. Institutions have quantitative teams, while retail investors do not; this is a structural unfairness. We have natively integrated tools like grid trading, dollar-cost averaging bots, Martingale strategies, and automatic rebalancing, with AI assisting in parameter settings, strategies executed transparently on-chain, and assets always in users' own wallets. You set the logic, and the system runs it for you without needing to monitor the market 24/7. This is a way to provide institutional-level tools to ordinary people.

Jason: What are the plans after the TGE?

Michael: The TGE is a starting point, not an endpoint.

• The first phase after TGE: We will continue to promote the Mining Pool and Ambassador Program. The focus of these mechanisms is not to create short-term hype but to allow community KOLs, content creators, and operators to participate in platform growth through genuine contributions.

• Prediction markets: This is also on the roadmap. Polymarket has validated this direction, but it is isolated. What we want to do is to place prediction markets and contract trading on the same platform—same account, same interface, without needing to switch wallets back and forth. Major elections, significant events, on-chain milestones, your judgments can directly turn into on-chain positions.

• Cross-chain and DAO governance: We hope AvoDex will ultimately become a platform built and governed by the community, rather than being unilaterally decided by the team.

Jason: Finally, if you had to summarize in one sentence what kind of platform AvoDex wants to build, what would you say?

Michael: I have been in this industry for nine years and have seen many projects rise and fall. They fail, mostly not because of poor technology, but because they have never truly stood on the side of the user.

We are building AvoDex not because it is a business. It is because I am the one who was stuck and unable to manage positions on CEX during extreme conditions. I know what that feeling of powerlessness is like.

Decentralization is not a slogan; it is a commitment—your assets are in your hands, the rules are written in the contracts, anyone can verify, and no one can turn it off when you need it the most.

The community is not a source of traffic for us, nor is it a group of users that only starts operating after the project goes live. A truly decentralized platform should allow the community to participate in building from product, rules to governance. Community members are not external observers standing outside the platform, but co-builders who determine how far the platform can go.

AvoDex wants to prove that trading platforms do not have to rely on controlling user assets to establish efficiency, and professional tools should not only belong to institutions. Assets belong to users, the rules are open and transparent, and the community can participate in the long-term construction of the platform—this is what we believe on-chain trading should look like.

AvoDex is not a product completed unilaterally by the team, but a platform built together by a group of people who believe in the same thing. We will meet on July 1.

AvoDex TGE is scheduled for July 1, 2026.