GMX has Arbitrum on lockdown amid intense competition

Journalist

Posted: November 27, 2023

• The spot and perp exchange has stamped its spot as the leader on Arbitrum.
• If GMX continues to ship new features, it could be bullish for price action.

Unless a miracle happens, GMX, the decentralized spot and perpetual exchange on Arbitrum [ARB], will continue to be the leading protocol on the chain.  This conclusion is mainly because of the Total Value Locked (TVL).

In a recent article, AMBCrypto explained how Arbitrum’s TVL surged past $2 billion. However, not many knew that the project’s TVL would be unable to reach such heights if not for the contributions of protocols like GMX.

Trust is in perps

At press time, GMX’s TVL was $491.55 million, according to data analyzed from DefiLlama. This amount was an 11.96% 30-day increase. Furthermore, the increase means that there was a spike in market participants locking capital into GMX while anticipating better rewards.

Source: DefiLlama

But that is not where it gets interesting. In second and third place respectively were the Uniswap [UNI] and Aave [AAVE] V3s. However, when you combine the TVLs of these protocols, the addition does not sum up to GMX’s numbers. 

Other protocols like Balancer V2 and Radiant were in fourth and fifth place while having close numbers. AMBCrypto swung into action to find out the reasons for the increasing dominance of the perpetual exchange.

Details from our research showed that the Arbitrum Short-Term Incentive Program (STIP) discussed here seems to be working wonders for GMX. Recall that Arbitrum gave priority to decentralized perpetual projects during the first round of distribution.

The building phase is in progress

So, it was not surprising that GMX got some part of the funds. However, the major highlight at that time was that the project was allocated the highest share. While GMX dominates the Arbitrum ecosystem, its token value also followed through in the last 30 days.

At the time of writing, GMX’s price was $50.28. This value represented a 16.93% hike in the last 24 hours. But the last seven days have not been the same, as GMX fell by 3.12%. However, it seemed that the project was making good use of Arbitrum’s STIP funds.

Source: Santiment

This assumption was because of its Development Activity, as shown above. A close look at the data provided by Santiment showed that the Development Activity metric increased from 0.14 on the 22nd of November to 0.24 at press time.

Realistic or not, here’s GMX’s market cap in ARB’s terms

The increase in the metric is proof that the project was committed to shipping new features for users of its exchange. In addition, this could be a bullish signal for GMX possibly in the long-term.

Should the use cases of the perpetual exchange attract more users, it could have a positive effect on the price action. For now, we wait to see how things unfold.