dYdX buys social trading firm Pocket Protector

Decentralised exchange dYdX has acquired social trading firm Pocket Protector in a deal in which specific terms are yet to be revealed. Pocket President co-founder Eddie Zhang has joined as president. Zhang brings experience from tech companies Meta and Amazon, as per a CoinDesk report. 

dYdX has been known as a critical DEX operating for 8 years in the decentralized finance space. Previous reports from Bloomberg said the decentralized exchange firm was looking a year ago for a buyer. 

Since the platform launched in 2017, dYdX has enabled over $1 trillion in annualized trading volume, while Pocket Protector grew its base to 50,000 users and reached over $1 billion in annualized trading volume. Pocket Platform is backed by Electric Capital and Dragonfly. M&A activity has been picking up in the crypto sector this year, along with IPO activity, especially for stablecoin companies. Recent acquisitions include Coinbase acquiring Deribit for $2.9 billion, Kraken acquiring NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion, Ripple acquiring Hidden Road for $1.25 billion, and Stripe acquiring Bridge for $1.1 billion, according to The Block.