Vest Airdrop

Problem Solved

Perpetual futures trading in both traditional finance and DeFi suffers from hidden fees, market manipulation, and unstable liquidity. Many decentralized exchanges either struggle to provide deep, consistent liquidity or fail to protect traders from predatory strategies. Vest addresses these challenges by combining zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) with a vertically integrated risk engine to create a transparent and fair trading environment.

At the core of Vest is zkRisk, a risk-based pricing engine that continuously monitors market conditions, trader positions, and system-wide exposure. Unlike traditional order book models where sophisticated traders can manipulate prices, Vest has a single liquidity pool which ensures that all trades are priced based on real-time risk rather than market-maker profit incentives. This prevents unfair trading behavior, reduces unnecessary costs, and provides liquidity providers with a more predictable return.

Vest also eliminates front-running and MEV by leveraging ZKPs, ensuring that trade execution remains private and tamper-proof. Additionally, traders pay a transparent premium tied directly to the risk they introduce, fostering a cost-efficient trading environment. By aligning incentives across traders, LPs, and the protocol itself, Vest aims to deliver a more stable, efficient, and accessible DeFi derivatives market.

Tokenomics

As of now, Vest has not publicly launched a token, instead, it introduced a “points” rewards program to incentivize early users. This program suggests that a native token is planned, with points likely convertible to tokens for active traders and contributors. While official details are pending, the approach appears community-focused – significant token allocations are expected to reward users (traders, LPs, early adopters), while the team and seed investors would hold a minority stake with vesting schedules . This would make the token distribution relatively decentralized and aligned with platform growth (ensuring no single party controls a majority).

Perspectives

Vest envisions broader applications beyond perpetual futures, potentially extending its risk engine to other on-chain financial products. By proving that transparent, algorithmic risk pricing can work at scale, Vest aims to attract institutional traders seeking efficient exposure without traditional overhead. Its single liquidity pool could expand to support markets for illiquid or emerging assets, opening up new revenue streams while reinforcing the value of its unified approach.

Technologically, Vest’s use of zero-knowledge proofs for order confidentiality and high-throughput validation may enable faster transactions, lower costs, and enhanced security. If performance meets expectations, these attributes could pave the way for multi-chain deployments or app-specific architectures, making Vest more accessible across diverse ecosystems.

Challenges persist. Vest must build and sustain deep liquidity to compete with incumbents like dYdX, GMX, or Hyperliquid. Regulatory uncertainty is an ongoing concern, particularly for derivatives. Additionally, scaling the platform to handle dramatic market swings will be critical for retaining user trust. Still, if Vest achieves robust liquidity and continues to refine its risk-centric, no-MEV model, it could become a template for how advanced trading functions on a decentralized network, eventually bridging gaps between DeFi and traditional finance.

Founders and Team

Vest’s team composition remains largely undisclosed, though Justin Ma serves as the project's CEO. Ma has a background in quantitative crypto research and has led Vest since July 2021. His experience includes s CTO role at Karleki, an AI/ML startup, and Berri, a social networking project he successfully exited. Prior to that, he worked as a Venture Analyst at Plug and Play Tech Center, an ML Research Assistant at the University of Pennsylvania, and even completed a stint as a U.S. Senate Intern. His diverse background blends crypto, AI, venture analysis, and policy research, suggesting a broad and multidisciplinary perspective on building decentralized financial infrastructure.

Beyond Ma, the identities of other team members remain undisclosed, though a job listing from February 2025 describes Vest’s team as a mix of computer scientists, Wall Street executives, cryptographers, DeFi founders, and physicists. This suggests a strong technical and financial foundation. The backing of institutional investors like Jane Street and Big Brain Holdings implies that investors have vetted the team’s expertise.

Funding

Vest’s fundraising efforts highlight growing investor confidence in its mission to create a trustless perpetual futures exchange powered by zero-knowledge proofs. The most recent milestone is a $5 million seed round, announced in March 2025, backed by notable investors like Selini Capital, QCP Capital, and Big Brain Holdings, alongside angel investors from BlackRock and Citadel.

These funds will drive the development of Vest’s Universal Risk Engine, which enables real-time, verifiable risk pricing for improved transparency and efficiency. Earlier, Vest raised funding in a 2023 round, though the total amount remains undisclosed, and participated in Beacon's Cohort S23 accelerator program. This consistent support suggests Vest is gaining traction, particularly among institutional and crypto-native investors.

Community

Vest’s community sentiment appears cautiously positive, with engagement primarily from a niche audience of DeFi enthusiasts and Web3 traders. Discussion is modest in volume, but the existing sentiment leans favorably, particularly around Vest’s fundraising success and its use of blockchain and zero-knowledge (zk) proofs for fair pricing. This aligns with broader industry trends favoring decentralization and transparency.

However, the lack of widespread buzz suggests Vest is still in its early adoption phase, with awareness limited to more technically inclined users. There is no strong negative sentiment, which indicates the project has not faced major backlash, but its relative lack of discussion implies it has yet to break into mainstream crypto discourse. To expand its community, the team is actively rewarding engagement, including offering points to active Discord members, which may help drive user participation.

Competitors

Vest competes in the decentralized derivatives market alongside dYdX, GMX, and Hyperliquid. dYdX operates an order book model and has dominated trading volume in decentralized perps, especially after migrating to its own Cosmos-based chain. GMX, meanwhile, pioneered a liquidity pool model on Arbitrum but has faced challenges with adverse selection risks for LPs.

Hyperliquid differentiates itself by building an L1 blockchain designed for financial applications, where dApps can leverage its order-matching engine and liquidity. However, this model still relies on traditional risk and capital efficiency structures, similar to centralized exchanges or ecosystems like Solana. While it enhances execution efficiency, it does not fundamentally solve the issue of fragmented risk and opaque capital management. A recent incident highlighted how liquidity risks remain uncertain when trades are intertwined with lending protocols, reinforcing the challenges of arbitrary margin requirements and unknown liquidation effects.

In contrast, Vest focuses on solving risk fragmentation by providing clear, transparent pricing and capital efficiency across interconnected financial activities. Instead of a reactive approach to risk events, Vest proactively models risk exposure across trading, lending, and margin systems, ensuring capital is utilized efficiently and predictably.

Other Details

The Vest Points Program launched on March 10, 2025, rewarding users with 1,000,000 points every week over 6 months based on their trading activity and liquidity provision. It aims to incentivize engagement, strengthen liquidity, and support early adopters. Additionally, liquidity providers can boost their rewards by participating in the Ignite Rewards Program, which launched on January 6, 2025. Beta testers and active Discord participants are also eligible for points.