DCRDEX 0.6 is coming

As we speak, DCRDEX 0.6 is entering into its final round of testing and packaging before its imminent release. With so much to look forward to, it’s a great opportunity to recap on what’s been happening behind the scenes.

DCRDEX 2023 Proposals

Firstly, three DEX proposals are finishing up voting and will see work continue on the project for the coming year and include countless new features and implementations. These improvements will lead the way to the first full stable release, DCRDEX version 1.0

Multi-chain wallet

DCRDEX is aiming to become a full-featured multi-chain wallet where each project has its advanced features exposes. Enabling users to participate in more aspects of a given project. The plan is essentially a pivot from a "DEX trading app" to a "state-of-the-art multi-wallet backed by Decred's DEX network”.

Features include privacy participation, staking, governance voting and so much more. To my knowledge, this will be the first multi-chain wallet to expose advance features of each project listed. Generally speaking, multi-wallets tend to be limited to storing, sending and receiving coins. With DCRDEX wallet, you’ll get all these extra features, peer to peer, without the need for intermediaries or custodial services. This, in my opinion, is the next evolution in interoperable cryptocurrency tech.

Ethereum and Stablecoins

One pair that most people have been looking forward to is the Ethereum pairs and their stablecoins. Both are coming and are already undergoing rigorous on-chain testing. Whatever your view of stablecoins, it’s a feature that a lot of Decred community members have asked for. And having the ability to use the most popular stablecoins with no bloat to the Decred chain is extremely beneficial to the project and any other project that builds these pairs. In my view, interoperability means you can take advantage of all the new and exciting stuff happening in the crypto space without taking on the risk, burden, and contention associated with such products. DCRDEX is this gateway.

New built-in wallets

With the availability of the new Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash built-in wallets, users, will no longer be limited to the Bitcoin BTC pair for moving in and out of fiat currencies. Currently, the BTC blockchain is heavily congested, so for those that need fiat on and off ramps we are subjected to paying higher mining fees with longer wait times. With these new pairs and their internal wallets, we’ll have a wider range of fiat liquidity to choose from, at much lower mining costs and much lower wait times.

Fidelity bonds

Fidelity bonds are replacing the registration fee. Fidelity bonds require users to lock up funds before they can participate on DCRDEX, these funds can be redeemed at a later date. This helps make sure all participants act in accordance with the DEX rules, and failure to do so incurs penalties. Fidelity bonds are a prerequisite to the DCRDEX mesh server and will help to make sure server operators are subjected to the same rules and penalties as their users.

DCRDEX UI overhaul

The DEX is getting a major user interface overhaul. This is to make the software suitable for a wider range of devices (including mobile), and to make the user experience more friendly as more wallet features, and pairs become available.

Polygon, Digibyte & Firo

After the implementation of Ethereum, DCRDEX has a reusable codebase for other EVM assets, including Polygon. Polygon has been chosen for an early integration because of its super-low fees and high activity, including stablecoins like USDC.

Digibyte is another integration that offers the project a few benefits, including its large, active community. Demonstrated recently when a Twitter post highlighting Digibyte was coming to DCRDEX saw a major hike in viewers to over 20k views, with lots of interactions and positive comments.


The firo community, including lead developers, have also expressed an interest in being added to the exchange.

DCRDEX Installers

To expose DCRDEX to the widest possible audience, packages will be developed to make the process of installing a lot easier and more familiar for everyday users. In general, Windows and Mac users don't start programs via the command-line or file explorer. They expect an installer program that creates an application icon and opens a desktop application. To start with, desktop apps and installer programs will be created for the major platforms; Windows, Mac, and Linux.

There is also an Umbrel package being developed for the Umbrel personal server, but unfortunately integration into their App Store has come up against some censorship issues. Currently, DCRDEX can be added as part of a community App Store, but not to the main Umbrel App Store.

Market Maker and Arbitrage Bots

While the DCRDEX supports a wide range of assets, bootstrapping liquid markets for these assets can be challenging. Without built-in market maker bots provided with DCRDEX, only market makers with the resources to create their own bots will be able to provide liquidity.  By offering an easy-to-use market maker bot, any user will be able to provide liquidity to any market. This creates opportunities for earning coins that many will find attractive. A decentralised network of market makers will lead to truly healthy markets.

The two types of bots that will be available are a “Maker Bot” which places orders on both sides of the order book at a certain distance from the current price. And an “Arbitrage Bot” which watches DCRDEX and a centralised exchange order book, and places orders on both if there is an arbitrage opportunity. Binance and Bittrex will be the initial exchanges supported by the Arbitrage Bot.

DCRDEX Rename

As the scope of the multi-wallet functionality expands, so does its target audience. For this reason, discussion has started around giving DCRDEX a name change to make the product more inclusive to the cryptocurrency space at large. One possibility that’s being considered, is to rename the client to BisonWallet, and the exchange network to BisonEx.

With so much development, it’s hard not to be enthusiastic about the project's future. After 7 years of active production, Decred continues to build some of the most innovative, permissionless, decentralised, non-custodial tech in the space.

DCRDEX, although built by Decred, doesn't require Decred to use the exchange. DCRDEX is a peer to peer decentralised exchange that aims to remove the middle man.