What is Hydro?

Hydro is an open source framework for building high performance Decentralized Exchanges.

Who is Hydro for?

Hydro is designed for developers looking to build decentralized exchanges without having to deal with the complexity and expense of designing, deploying, and securing smart contracts.

Traders then use the Hydro Smart Contracts through the interface of Hydro Relayers (Decentralized Exchanges built on Hydro).

Why should I build on Hydro?

Starting a new decentralized exchange from scratch is an extremely costly and time consuming process. Hydro massively alleviates the cost and time through:

  • The Hydro SDK, which launches a complete and easily customizable Decentralized Exchange interface in a single docker command
  • The Hydro API and documentation is open source and standardized. Many users and DeFi projects are already fully integrated.
  • Efficient, secure, and flexible decentralized exchange smart contracts (professionally audited)
  • No token holding requirements or weird token fees: complete freedom for Relayers

The core project consists of a set of open source smart contracts and components for implementing efficient, fast, and secure ERC20 token exchange functionality.

Building on Hydro provides not only a fantastic opportunity to learn and develop in one of the hottest sectors of technology, but you can build a system to potentially earn profit. Hydro Relayers naturally earn profits both through trading fees, and through the Hydro Protocol Economic Incentives (if you choose to opt-in). Relayers that participate in the Hydro Economics are automiacally awarded HOT tokens (discussed in greater detail in the hydro-token section) proportional to the number of trades they make.

Scope

  • Hydro itself is not a specific exchange: it is a framework for Exchanges to build on.
  • A core philosophy of Hydro is that decentralized trading should be as frictionless as possible. No token holding requirements. No extra baggage in the smart contracts.
  • Hydro will never force relayers to participate in token incentive mechanisms. Relayers can freely join/exit the incentive mechanisms at any time.
  • The name Hydro is designed to emphasize that liquidity matters above everything else for exchanges. The Hydro framework emulates this value.
Getting Started →