Meet the Winners of the TON × GMX Perpetual DEX Competition

In December 2024, the TON Foundation, in collaboration with GMX—a leading permissionless perpetual decentralized exchange (DEX)—launched an ambitious development competition aimed at accelerating the growth of perpetual DEX protocols within the TON ecosystem. The initiative sought to unlock the full potential of high-performance, on-chain trading platforms uniquely tailored to TON’s architecture.

Now, the competition has officially concluded, and the results are in. The winning projects not only impressed judges with their technical innovation but also showcased promising visions for scalable and accessible decentralized trading.

Competition Overview and Evaluation Criteria

The core challenge: Build a next-generation perpetual DEX that leverages TON’s capabilities while delivering innovation in user experience, performance, and technical integrity.

Projects were judged on five key dimensions:

• Code quality, security, and architecture

• Alignment with TON’s user base and Telegram ecosystem

• Community engagement and business potential

• Scalability and trading performance

• Go-to-market readiness and long-term viability

To ensure a rigorous selection process, TonBit, a prominent audit firm in the TON ecosystem, provided technical reviews and assessed the safety and structure of each project’s codebase.

First Place: Storm Trade

Storm Trade emerged as the standout winner. The project demonstrated exceptional technical depth, with a robust architecture deeply integrated with the TON blockchain. The judges praised Storm Trade’s comprehensive understanding of the complexities involved in building a decentralized perpetual exchange from the ground up.

Storm Trade’s vision aligns closely with the future of TON DeFi, and the product is positioned as a potential cornerstone of the ecosystem's trading infrastructure.

Second Place (Tie): Tradoor and TON Hedge

Two teams shared second place for their creative and technically sound approaches:

• Tradoor: Known for its innovative design and modular approach to perps trading.

• TON Hedge: Recognized for its early promise and fresh perspective on building leverage-based DeFi tools within the TON landscape.

While both projects are still in early stages, their strong foundations suggest significant potential. The TON Foundation has committed to supporting their continued development and ecosystem integration.

Next Steps: Accelerating Growth Post-Competition

To help the winning teams scale and refine their products, TON Foundation and GMX will offer:

• Advisory support from experienced GMX builders

• Strategic mentorship from top DeFi contributors

• Ecosystem-wide marketing and visibility

• Investor introductions to early-stage crypto funds

• Audit cost coverage to ensure code security and reliability

This hands-on support is designed to accelerate the projects’ go-to-market journeys and help them integrate more deeply into the TON ecosystem.

Why This Matters

Perpetual exchanges are essential to the maturity of any DeFi ecosystem. On TON, they represent a key opportunity to democratize finance by making advanced trading accessible to Telegram’s global user base. With its high throughput and mobile-first design, TON has the potential to deliver powerful trading tools to hundreds of millions of users.

The TON × GMX competition was a step toward that vision. The winning projects signal a new era of DeFi innovation, where on-chain performance and user-centric design go hand-in-hand.

About GMX

GMX is a leading decentralized exchange offering both perpetual and spot trading across multiple blockchains, including Arbitrum, Avalanche, and Solana. GMX enables non-custodial, permissionless trading with:

• Up to 100x leverage

• Low swap fees

• Sub-second oracle pricing via Chainlink Data Streams

• Composable liquidity via GLV vaults and GM pools

With over 80 integrations and a strong developer ecosystem, GMX continues to serve as a foundational layer for multichain DeFi.

Visit: gmx.io

Stay Tuned

The TON Foundation thanks all participants for their contributions and invites developers to apply for grants and join future ecosystem initiatives. The momentum is building—and this is just the beginning.

For updates and opportunities, visit the official TON developer portal and follow TON Foundation channels.