Decibel launches on Aptos with $58 million in funding and a strategic tool from Stripe’s Bridge.

After a testnet featuring 700,000 accounts and $50 million in pre-deposits, Decibel initiates mainnet trading utilizing an onchain order book and risk engine on Aptos.

Decibel goes live on Aptos (sergeitokmakov/Pixabay/Modified by CoinDesk)

What to know:

• Decibel logged over 700,000 accounts, 132,000 daily users, and surpassed 1 million daily trades during its public testnet.
• All order matching, settlement, and margin procedures are executed onchain through smart contracts on Aptos.
• More than $50 million was pledged prior to the mainnet launch; approximately 40% originated from users of Ethereum and Solana.

Decibel, a completely onchain perpetuals exchange developed by Aptos Labs, has officially launched on the Aptos mainnet, as announced by the Decibel Foundation on Wednesday.

This launch follows a public testnet that attracted over 700,000 unique accounts and 132,000 daily active users, according to the foundation. During the testing phase, users conducted over 1 million trades each day, and more than $58 million was raised through a pre-deposit initiative prior to the mainnet launch.

Decibel’s launch occurs amid a growing competition within onchain perpetuals exchanges. The last year has witnessed a rise in rivalry, with Hyperliquid remaining the leading platform in terms of trading volume.

Other players, such as Aster and Lighter, briefly gained popularity before receding from the limelight. Decibel now enters this increasingly competitive arena with intentions to capture market share from a sector that has accumulated $920 billion in trading volume over the past month, according to DeFiLlama.

Decibel utilizes a central limit order book where order submission, matching, settlement, and risk management are entirely onchain. This approach replaces the offchain risk engines and discretionary controls typical in both traditional and crypto exchanges with established smart contract rules accessible to users.

The protocol marks the first perpetual exchange constructed on Aptos, a layer-1 blockchain characterized by sub-50 millisecond block times and sub-500 millisecond finalization. Decibel’s matching engine, margin requirements, and liquidation procedures operate onchain.

Users have the option to fund their accounts through Aptos, Ethereum, Solana, or centralized exchanges. Approximately 40% of the pre-deposit funds came from Ethereum and Solana, according to the foundation. The platform employs a dollar-pegged stablecoin, usDCBL, issued by Bridge, a Stripe subsidiary, as its standard collateral.

The Decibel Foundation indicated plans to introduce spot markets, multi-collateral accounts, and tokenized real-world assets, aiming to broaden its offerings beyond crypto derivatives in the future.