edgeX's Explosive Q4: RWA Perps, Upcoming TGE & Circle Integration

0:00Hey everyone, my name is Eric Manoukian. I am a research analyst here at Missouri on the Protocol Services team and today I am joined by the co-founder of Ajax KF. Nice to meet you, KF. Nice to meet you. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. And today we're going to be talking about my latest Missouri report, the state of Ajax Q4 2025, diving into updates in regards to Ajax to protocol, as well as current updates as we're into the month of March and as well as any future updates. So, really excited to get into this with the UKF and talk about what really happened in Ajax and how you guys stood out. Thank you, Eric. Awesome. So let's get started. In the to begin with the TBL Total Value Locked and User Growth, saw some great growth over the quarter. Despite late quarter outflows following the end of

1:02open season incentive program, Ajax did close with $352.9 million in TBL, which was a Q over Q increase of 33.2%, as well as having cumulative users surpassing 181,270 users by year end, showcasing an average daily new users rising 8.2% Q over Q to 880. Any insight or thoughts there, KF, on the growth of TBL and user growth on Ajax? Regarding the growth, I think actually the October 10s is actually kind of like a pivot point. I would say like for the overall market. But despite that, I think like the first, I would say the DAX rail ring actually is still quite already, so compared with like the CEX market. So I think the overall, I would say the four everyone in the DAX base, the volume users' materials are growing. And despite that, I think like

2:03even though we see, I would say like we cannot see like decline like in the crypto market, but actually I think there has been more trending interests like actually in the own chain, commodity perps, active perps. And those I think actually gives, I would say like many of the perfects that include ourselves an opportunity to continue growing like under this market situation. Absolutely. Yeah, and I do want to kind of double down on the October 10th event. Obviously one of the largest liquidation cascades with over $18 billion in liquidations, even greater than what we've seen during the FTX days. I kind of want to go inside, see what was inside the Ajax office. How did the team handle that situation? Can you like kind of talk through that day and reflect on it? I know it was a while back, but definitely a big turning point within the industry itself, this pass cycle.

3:07It's actually, you know, I would say it's actually just while those moments like, like one basically our most off team will be like wake up by the emergency like alerts and just has to quickly assemble together and monitor our system and the overall the market situation and prepare for any contingency like measures if needed because like doing those volatile market situation like the volumes will spice and most of the users will you know kind of like like I would say the stability at that moment is the it's the most important things like in our head and we just have to really work hard and to prepare for like any contingency measures if needed. And so during that days we got up and also we monitored the stability of our underlying services and insured that there were no abnormalities especially in the price feed market data and also we were you know do a bunch of testing about like order placement and the cancerism process to ensure like everything

4:12runs you know like us issued and also you know like after you know like check all those major components as well as those core functions like we meant like in attacked like from our platforms you know like the risk of like major device disruptions the risk you know was kind of like limited but if any issues like had a reason like we we just were prepared I would say to activate like alternative backup procedures while troubleshooting the underlying services. For that specific days I would say you know like we throughout the event like we didn't have any zero downtime, zero bad depth or any uninterrupted execution but it's just one of those moments we have to be prepared and also I think that's just we're always I would say we'll always be kind of like the memory about like how volatile like the market can become and when we design the system and for future developments we just have to always keep that in mind. Absolutely yeah it was obviously

5:16it was a detrimental day for many exchanges, sexes, dexes but it's good to see like the resilience of teams that come out of it and still provide the execution, enable withdrawals and just allow a lot of users to kind of get the most from what would seem to be pretty hectic day within the crypto markets in general. So moving down to perpetrating volume kind of leaning into what the what we were talking about previously with the October 10th and market cascade and kind of the drawdown from the individual market. We still saw eject still saw growth on the perpetual trading volume Q over Q I'm with 174.5% increase to 4.5 billion dollars up from 1.6 billion dollars in Q3 so with the average daily value rising 179.8% Q over Q to 401 million dollars. So despite all despite the

6:19events that occurred on October 10th the overall overall growth on ejects Q4 was definitely a kind of a standout quarter for the protocol. Any commentary on that? Yeah I think like one thing I was to notice is actually in December at the time we actually closed our open season like the points programs is actually I was I would say like give us a valuable period like we will be able to monitor I would say like more organic volumes and user interactions. Still I would say even you know after we close our points program during that time you know like we still have like a I would say like a stable volumes especially links towards the end of the year so people were kind of like in general it's more I would say it's it's it's has like you know last participation but I actually I would say like for our team it's actually gives us also valuable period of time to to see like how how

7:20is a more organic retention that's actually stayed. Yeah absolutely just kind of distinguishing like incentivized capital versus more organic capital this this period this kind of brief period at the end of the quarter showcases that that there's still some resilience and actually some growth compared to prior quarters as you know the graph here. But yeah as we go down towards fees ejects captured $155.8 million in fees during Q4 2025 representing 169.9% Q over Q increased. So on average that was a $52 million in fees per month so indicating sustained fee capture even as trading activity declined toward year end. So yeah all fees accrued directly to the ejects protocol treasury is that you have any commentary in regards to kind of the growth of the treasury throughout 2025 what it might be used for in the future and

8:23things like that. Yeah of course so first I would say those those treasuries are actually quite important I would say that kind of like a protection for our own ecosystem and especially I would say even though you know during the on the October 10th where we didn't have a issue but I think we always have to I would say keep a mindset to be able to prepare for what may happens and also I think the part of the treasuries can use like in the future if there's a need you know directly for any user is who who sacrificed due to like the system downtime or anything like that and also that's that's that's a main main features for the treasury fund and of course I would say like after the TGE it will also be used for the token buy tracks so I would say so it's also on the other than that I think it's also will be actually used for the future I would say like the community grows like once after our TGE we can add you know like our community to participate more in the

9:27competence about like how those funds can be better used in the future. Awesome. Before we transition into kind of the V2 rollout edge chain edge stack updates I think I want to end this like retroactive part of the piece talking I'm giving you a time to talk through kind of like the market share within the perp dexes obviously perp dexes hit pretty good product market fit a lot of teams are transitioning into building out their own perp dexes trying to capture the market share explosive market share within the actual sector itself how does NJX think about like defending and growing market share within this within this pretty highly competitive environment. Yeah first I would say in general the the perp dexes is no something new it has always been there and it has the product market fit like has been proven by the CEX and for our own team I think

10:28our approach has always stayed the same it's about like how we you know building a venue like we are series traders actually want to stay and use for long term what do we think actually the most important what makes the difference like fundamentally is actually on the liquidity and that's what's most of the traders series traders that kills the most and I would say like within the perp dexes competitions and our edge is visible in the autoboke for example like for Bitcoin market like at one basic point price impact and our autoboke actually offers two minutes U.S.C. in executable depths and this has been continuing I would say like ranking the number one market wide we think that price range and I would say that's strength like we said liquidity will always scale like with our growth and that's just something like we think the fundamentally most important and simultaneously I would say like continue innovations in the products and the

11:30market design is also the key at this stage I think our focus is not just on the crypto perps we also have commodity equity indices like all are embedded into like 24 hours seven days of perp markets especially I would say like with our own chain slunch we will be able to support like more diverse applications on chain like from not only perp but also we will have like spots and other financial applications like lending to asset management or directly I would say will be the goal is about like how we want to build them like on the same liquidity layers so traders like our users like don't really need to leave like you know like doing the like downturns like they can hatch or they can pivot and but I think it's more about like how do we provide them a universal trading experience like with decent liquidity contract

12:32that's absolutely a perfect segue into kind of the next section of this conversation going into the V2 rule out and like product expansion that occurred with ejects in Q4 as well as a number of things that have come out in Q1 2026 already obviously the the initial first production deployment of on the edge stack was spot markets starting off with the ethereum markets and and then leading into ejects as native memecoin maru so I would love to kind of get a little bit of commentary on the maru token itself and kind of the growth there what was the what was the reasoning or like how does it contribute to the overall ecosystem or ejects ecosystem so for maru like we define it as like a IP tokens and it's actually stand for like our community consensus on like a retail centric mindset and that's has always I would say that's also also always been our focus like

13:37since the day one like we launched a really good mobile app I think that's also differentiate from other competitors in the space it's in general I think the mobile app just provide a more handy experience and also it's more retail friendly and so I would say besides the product like on the retail centric but also we want to build up that community consensus around like we call it 99% which stands for most of the retail users and also just like the maru tokens you know which is actually distributed among like our community like retail users so I would say I think like despite the volatile like like a micro market situations it's actually surprising like our maru tokens the community consensus like hold up like quite strong like even in this kind of like volatile market and that's also an indication I would say like about like a strength of a retail community so and the moving forward I think it's just going to

14:43touch to like our future community growth and that's also going to type to our daily campaigns and for example like when we do kind of like weekly like lottery distributions with users and yeah many of our users just just love it and and also I think it's just gradually you know like we're going to strengthen the the cultural IP and and build up like to build up like with the community growth yeah yeah it's imperative to always sustain and grow that the community that you guys are developing even on the retail side as well as the as well as like what you guys are doing more so on the institutional side of things so completely can understand the incentives driven from the maru tokens nowadays with the lottery system but also just sustaining the overall community build up for the ejects ecosystem and maintain that retail oriented focus but yeah I think one of the next questions obviously you alluded to it a little bit earlier but the team did

15:48launch RWA perps in January of this year starting off with equities indices commodities what did some of the I guess kind of talk through the strategic direction for that obviously the gold trade was was a big was a big factor in a lot of others implementing RWA perps but would love to hear more from your end so first actually today is also I was it is also a surprise us actually our commodity volumes is actually a ballot between like 20 to 30 percent of our total like platforms volumes and that's actually only second to the Bitcoin and Ethereum like like market trading volumes so actually that I think that's a indications about like how how like the attentions have been gradually I would say pivot from like the previous outgoing to the more traditional finance asset and I think that's also tied to I would say tied to like a practical functions of the perps

16:50like for example like doing doing that Sundays like when there was all the try to fly markets are closed basically the the perps are the only way actually way you know for traders who have the interest to participate in the markets like during the during the Sundays so I think that's the we also expect I would say the the shares of the commodities were also be continue increasing and I think that's also a good science for the industry about like how the how more like I would say like no create no crypto native users we also have attentions on the on the perps on how like especially I would say like own chain perps where actually evolves like from the crypto assets to more traffic assets yeah I guess one of my biggest questions from that is does the team suspect that perps volumes on non crypto native assets will surpass crypto native assets by the end of the year yeah like if we follow like this current I would say the current progress it's definitely

17:56well we'll have the chance to to surpass that interesting yeah and to kind of develop upon that again you alluded a little bit earlier in being like the one stop for asset management trading prediction markets like you you recently integrated or recently recently had an integration with polymarket to enable prediction markets on edgex so kind of all encompassing now that you have spot markets you have perps markets within crypto assets and non crypto assets it's obviously a developing integration and as time goes on I know the the CFTC is working diligently to implement and open up those doors within American markets but overall in in general markets it's going to expand as time goes on and that will inherently drive more users to to edgex but one final thing that obviously that has happened over the past I think yeah about like a

18:58month ago with like recent announcements was the circle ventures investment I would love to give you some give you some time on the floor to really talk through that the the reason behind it kind of how it developed and what it enables for edge chain itself I think it's one of the key moments of the quarter so far yeah of course I would say first the all-ramp and off-ramp has I would say it has always been the most I would say one of the most important UX like for the for the traders so previously we have to do you actually be able to have that cross-chain compost abilities there has just been using different like a bridging solutions which I would say like which is actually kind of like a complex for the users and also do you have some frictions but by partner like with circle and usdc the integration of the native usdc and ccTP into our ecosystem has dramatically I would say the improve like the equality efficiency

20:01and user experience by basically eliminating the need for bridges rappers and on necessary frictions which is actually super important for our users onboarding and at the same time supporting like a native usdc has upgraded our chain level infrastructure with enhanced compliance touring that including working with transaction monitoring providers such as elliptic and this I would say that these are really important steps are part of a broader effort to build professional grade entry point that allow institutional participation participants like in the future to deploy like a meaningful capital into your ecosystem and so yeah I think it's first it's actually resolved one of our most important UX components and the second is actually give us a really important like an interim point for the future institution level size of the capital deployment absolutely yeah it's a large

21:08transition or strategic transition for edgex and a good catalyst moment for native usdc to come on chain onto edge chain and the integrations that come along with it so it was great to see that news come through I'm sure I'm well received by the community as well but yeah I guess transitioning into the final section of today's call kind of looking forward into what's ahead for edgex one of the main things on the report here itself talks through the edge token distribution love for you to kind of talk through the strategic direction for the edge tokenomics and maybe any other details that you can provide after the community in regards to edge token yeah so I would say the the tg will be really important like a kind of like a next stage for our growth and especially after the token launch we'll be able to I would say to gradually inviting more of our community users to participate in the governance that's also why actually we give 30% of the

22:13of the total sales to the early users to kind of get that community participation start and and also that's going to be tied into a lot of like our future products development for example we also especially as you you can tell like Rena we are able to onboarding a lot more comprehensive and diverse market listing into edgex liquidity and the two also futures there will be also be mechanisms about how we let the tokens governance to decide on like which market we should list also which I would say like which markets we should link our ecosystem liquidity to so those part I would say were all tight directly to the tokens yeah and also of course like they will be also continue I would say the campaigns and programs for future edgex ecosystem growth so the portions of the ecosystem and the community and the future reserves all also will be

23:18play important roles into into our community growth yeah so obviously that's the kind of the largest next step for edgex I know the team is hunkered down really finalizing those last steps for the edge tge I guess to kind of round out this call is there anything beyond the tge that you would like to share to the community in regards to what's ahead up new product updates new market offerings things like that obviously if it still needs to be suppressed it's okay to kind of not you don't have to talk through it but would love to hear more about any further updates beyond just the tge yeah so I think like the the next the next stage like it's like one way launch hour v2 and also edge stack I think one of the important things like we have been working really hard on is like how to build up a more transparent and efficient like trading I would say not only for traders today but also for let's say if there will be a new economy

24:25for AI agent in the future how do we be able to adapt to that new economy will be something we're having consistently thinking and working on and that's directly going to decide it on the the infrastructure we are building towards and also how do we customize the data feed to because in the future like for today I would say like a lot of things we do is about how to acquire like traders attention and be able to provide the most better UX for traders but in the future let's say like if if we have like a new economy based on like the AI agent what would be I would say the most efficient way to provide the data to attract like the agents attention and let the agents be willing to connect to our data to our liquidity I think that's a big I would say that's a big question but it's also a directions we are exploring and working towards yeah the the proliferation

25:27of the agent agent's economy is rapidly approaching and teams need to be ahead of that curve and it's good to hear that that's the it's already been considered inside of Ajax but yeah as we're coming to time I would love to give you kind of any final closing thoughts that you would like to share to the community and we can round out the call from there yeah thank you thank you Eric and yeah I would I would say like as our TG is coming it's definitely going to be a new stage for us and also I think today I think it's really exciting actually actually to see like the AI I think AI is about like productive forces and token is about like the production relations so I think it actually gives everyone and everyone like in our community to think of what are something like we want to build for ourselves for our ecosystem I think the AI do give I would say like a more democratized like a tours like for everyone to realize like what do they want to build and for us

26:30as I was it besides like I mentioned earlier like what do we want to build at your adapt to this new economy also we would like to explore like what could be the this new economy our relations great I again really appreciate your time today walking through the Q4 2025 report for anyone in the audience it's I'll be when we distribute this out make sure to link it to link to the article to get full details on what's new but thank you again KF for joining obviously it's been great supporting you guys so far and looking forward to continuing your support throughout the TGE and beyond that journey thank you Eric thank you