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Polygon\u2011incubated Katana has acquired veteran DEX IDEX to launch Katana Perps, folding a decade of exchange tech into its DeFi stack as it races Hyperliquid and dYdX for onchain derivatives volume.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Katana, a DeFi\u2011focused Ethereum scaling chain incubated by\u00a0Polygon Labs<\/a>\u00a0and trading firm\u00a0GSR<\/a>, has acquired decentralized exchange\u00a0IDEX<\/a>, using its infrastructure to launch\u00a0Katana Perps, a perpetual futures venue built directly into the Katana app. The deal, announced on March 23, 2026, brings nearly a decade of exchange technology from the 2017\u2011founded DEX into Katana\u2019s stack, with IDEX now \u201crelaunching as Katana Perps\u201d and serving as the native derivatives engine for the chain. \u201cThe goal is to own more of the trading stack and the revenue that comes with it,\u201d Katana CEO\u00a0Matthew Fisher\u00a0said, calling the acquisition the \u201cfirst major step\u201d of his tenure as he formalizes the strategy he has led since joining the project.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fisher argued that as crypto trading migrates to always\u2011on venues, infrastructure that blends CEX\u2011like performance with onchain settlement will define winners. \u201cWe\u2019re building for 24\/7 markets where price discovery happens onchain, not during bank hours,\u201d he said, pointing to U.S. regulators\u2019 recent signals about a path for crypto perpetual futures as an inflection point for the sector. Under the new setup, IDEX\u2019s order book and AMM architecture becomes the backbone for Katana Perps, which routes spot liquidity, perps, and order flow through a single interface rather than siloing derivatives as a separate product.<\/p>\n Katana\u2019s broader DeFi stack now spans four pillars:\u00a0Sushi<\/strong>\u00a0for spot trading,\u00a0Morpho<\/strong>\u00a0for lending,\u00a0Kensei<\/strong>\u00a0for token launches, and Katana Perps for leveraged derivatives, all coordinated by the\u00a0KAT<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0vKAT<\/strong>\u00a0token model. Over time, vKAT holders will be able to direct incentives toward perps markets and earn a share of fees, folding derivatives revenue into the same flywheel that powers spot and lending on the chain. At launch, Katana Perps is supported by major market makers\u00a0GSR<\/strong>,\u00a0Selini Capital<\/strong>, and\u00a0Auros<\/strong>, which Fisher said were drawn by IDEX\u2019s \u201cnearly a decade\u201d of live infrastructure and the chain\u2019s performance\u2011oriented design.<\/p>\n Founded in 2017, IDEX was \u201cthe first decentralized exchange to combine a high\u2011performance matching engine with onchain settlement\u201d and, through 2019, \u201cconsistently ranked first by trading volume and transaction count among all DEX protocols,\u201d Katana noted. Bringing that stack in\u2011house lets Katana offer a more CEX\u2011like experience \u2014 deep API support, higher throughput, and tighter spreads \u2014 while keeping custody and settlement onchain.<\/p>\n The acquisition lands as perpetuals DEXes are seeing rising volumes and attracting more professional flow, with venues like\u00a0Hyperliquid,\u00a0dYdX, and GMX competing to lock in whales and market makers. Recent crypto.news coverage has highlighted how new onchain products \u2014 from\u00a0Hyperliquid\u2019s\u00a0HIP\u20114 proposal for outcome markets to high\u2011stakes perps traders posting multi\u2011million\u2011dollar PnL \u2014 are pulling structurally sticky liquidity into derivatives rails. In that context, Katana\u2019s decision to acquire rather than simply integrate a third\u2011party DEX is a clear statement: the chain wants to control its own economic engines instead of renting them.<\/p>\n As Fisher put it, \u201cOwning perps is not just owning a product, it\u2019s owning the heartbeat of your chain,\u201d a line that neatly captures where the DeFi race is headed.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Polygon\u2011incubated Katana has acquired veteran DEX IDEX to launch Katana Perps, folding a decade of exchange tech into its DeFi stack as it races Hyperliquid and dYdX for onchain derivatives…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24281,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24280\/revisions\/24281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A full DeFi stack with native perps<\/h1>\n
Onchain derivatives arms race<\/h1>\n