Competitive Landscape

Several existing projects touch on elements of Xi’s offering, but none combine all features in one unified platform. Let's compare Xi to other leading Web3 derivatives and protocols.

dYdX - (Perpetual DEX)

dYdX is a pioneer in decentralized perps, offering an orderbook-style exchange with up to 20× leverage. It achieved high volumes (averaging $0.3–2.6B daily in early 2023), but relied heavily on token incentives, leading to inflated volumes. dYdX’s model is semi-centralized (off-chain matching engine) and focused purely on individual trading; there are no social investing features. Its token, $DYDX, initially lacked fee-sharing (leading to value leakage), prompting plans to direct trading fees to token holders in its upcoming v4.

Xi vs dYdX

Xi takes a different approach – instead of an order book per asset, Xi creates markets for traders themselves. This adds a social dimension that dYdX lacks. Moreover, Xi’s $XI token captures fee value from day one via buybacks and staking rewards, whereas dYdX only belatedly addressed token value capture. While dYdX targets pro traders seeking a CEX-like experience, Xi appeals to both skilled traders and their followers, expanding the addressable market beyond pure self-directed trading.

GMX (Perpetual DEX)

GMX is a leading on-chain perp exchange on Arbitrum & Avalanche, using a pooled liquidity AMM model (traders trade against a multi-asset pool, GLP). GMX emphasizes simplicity (swaps with ~0 slippage using oracle pricing) and real yield: 30% of all trading fees are distributed to GMX stakers in ETH/AVAX. GMX grew organically to ~$600M TVL, outpacing dYdX’s liquidity, but supports a limited range of assets (historically ~4–8 major tokens).

Xi vs GMX

Xi similarly shares fee revenue with stakers (real yield) and can tap the strong demand GMX demonstrated for revenue-sharing models. The key difference is Xi’s underlying assets are trader strategies rather than token pairs. Xi’s isolated markets mean it can list an unlimited roster of Trading Agents without fragmenting liquidity (each Agent has its own market). By contrast, GMX lacks built-in copy trading; users must manage their own trades. By adding a social “follow-the-expert” layer on top of a GMX-style fee model, Xi appeals not only to active traders but also to passive investors who want exposure to proven trader skill without manual trading.

Synthetix/Kwenta (Synthetic Perps)

Synthetix is a decentralized liquidity pool for synthetic assets, now powering Kwenta and other front-ends to trade synthetic perpetual futures with up to 50× leverage. It offers deep liquidity (all SNX stakers back all assets) and a wide variety of markets (including long-tail assets). Synthetix’s recent growth was driven by heavy incentives (e.g. $5.7M in Optimism tokens rewarded to traders), which enabled it to briefly overtake GMX in volume. However, trades on Synthetix are against a debt pool – a more abstract mechanism – and there is no concept of investing in individual traders.

Xi vs Synthetix

Xi also employs a synthetic model, but instead of tokenizing reference assets, it creates synthetic instruments tracking individual traders’ results. Xi’s design is community-centric: each trader runs a mini-economy of followers, whereas Synthetix is a generalized liquidity protocol. By isolating each trader’s performance in its own instrument, Xi avoids the complexity of socialized losses in a shared debt pool. One trader’s loss can’t spill over to others. This one-to-one linkage between a trader’s P&L and their token makes Xi’s offering more intuitive for retail investors.

Virtuals Protocol (AI Agents Platform)

Virtuals, launched in late 2024, is a platform that allows creation of tokenized AI agents (with each agent having its own token and on-chain revenue model). Its vision is an AI agent economy with co-ownership and revenue sharing through tokenization. In practice (so far) most agent tokens act like speculative memecoins as real revenue streams are still in early stages. Virtuals introduced the concept of an Initial Agent Offering (IAO) – creators lock the platform’s $VIRTUAL token to launch an agent token via bonding curve, and a 1% tax on agent token trades funds the agent’s operations.

Xi vs Virtuals

Xi’s model is similar in spirit but narrower and deeper in focus. Xi lists only agents backed by proven traders, whereas Virtuals hosts a grab-bag of agents (entertainment bots, chat assistants, etc.) with unproven revenue. Because each Xi agent is tied to verifiable trading results, its value driver is concrete. Xi also adds sophisticated mechanics Virtuals lacks – for example, the ability to short an agent, and a structured fee/reward split for backers. In essence, Virtuals pioneered co-owned AI agents, but Xi executes a highly monetizable version of that idea in the lucrative crypto-trading niche (copy trading 3.0). Xi’s AI integration is laser-focused on trading: tools specifically enhance and benchmark trading performance, creating an AI trading layer that builds on Virtuals’ early momentum while pushing into a revenue-generating frontier.

In summary, no existing platform offers retail investors a way to invest in a trader’s future performance – or bet against it.

By being first-to-market with this model, Xi aims to carve out a new category in Web3: a perpetual exchange to buy, sell, and invest in assets backed by professional traders’ skills.