dYdX Makes Power Move: Acquires Entire Team to Dominate Social-First Perps Trading

dYdX just rewrote the playbook on crypto hiring—snapping up a full squad to turbocharge its social-first perpetuals trading platform. No piecemeal recruiting here; this is a wholesale talent grab aimed at outflanking rivals.

Why build when you can buy? The DeFi giant's aggressive acquisition signals a scorched-earth approach to capturing the social trading boom. Forget organic growth—this is corporate Darwinism with a nine-figure war chest.

One hedge fund manager quipped: 'At least they didn't waste the money on another Super Bowl ad.' The market's watching to see if this bet pays off—or becomes another cautionary tale in crypto's talent arms race.

The social trading edge dYdX couldn’t build alone

The Pocket Protector acquisition can be seen as a strategic purchase of time, executional firepower, and a proven mentality that dYdX believes it needs to scale through a new competitive phase in decentralized trading.

Pocket Protector’s team achieved in months what most DeFi projects struggle with for years: creating a sticky, social trading experience that users actually wanted. Their Telegram-native app, which let traders follow each other’s moves and share strategies in real time, amassed 50,000 users and topped $1 billion in annualized volume before most competitors even noticed.

That kind of viral traction is rare in DeFi, where liquidity often follows mercenary yield farmers rather than engaged communities.

“Pocket Protector’s products will join the dYdX product suite, and I’m excited for how their technology will power the expansion of the main dYdX product,” Juliano said. “This is a big moment for us, and a big step forward.”

The team’s integration speaks volumes about dYdX’s priorities. Eddie Zhang, who led product at Meta’s Messenger before co-founding Pocket Protector, is stepping in as President, effectively becoming Juliano’s right hand on product execution.

Kaiser Kinbote, a crypto-native growth expert, will oversee user acquisition and retention, two areas where dYdX has historically lagged behind centralized rivals. Their four engineers will embed directly into dYdX’s Core development teams, suggesting their work won’t be siloed as a side project.

What comes next hinges on execution. dYdX has already begun porting Pocket Protector’s Telegram bot functionality to its platform, a MOVE that could make its perps market feel less like a spreadsheet and more like a trading floor.

But the real test will be whether the team’s social-first DNA can thrive inside a protocol that has spent years optimizing for decentralization and capital efficiency. If they succeed, dYdX won’t just be the biggest decentralized perps exchange. It might be the first one that traders actually enjoy using.