Share this article
Hxro Begins Testing Crypto Derivatives Trading Platform on Solana
Trading will be restricted to dummy collateral as the developers stress test their network.
By Danny Nelson
Updated May 11, 2023, 5:34 p.m. Published Jul 1, 2022, 2:55 p.m.
Crypto derivatives marketplace layer Hxro conducted a test launch on the Solana mainnet Friday with a handful of bitcoin futures contracts that use a dummy token as collateral.
Hxro’s “alpha sandbox” won’t put traders’ real money at risk, co-founder Dan Gunsberg told CoinDesk. That’s because the contract collateral is UXDC (a play on USDC and Hxro), a valueless, simulated stablecoin Hxro minted to stress test the network before public launch.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
The test phase moves Hxro one step closer to bringing its institutional-backed decentralized finance (DeFi) derivatives hub to full operation. Quant trading firm Susquehanna International Group, Alameda, Jump and the Chicago Trading Company are among Hxro’s funders and participants assisting with core functions, such as market making.
Gunsberg said Hxro aims to become a hub for derivatives trading atop the Solana blockchain. “What we as a network are really focusing on is bringing in applications to build on top of the network and all of the liquidity from each of those networks will bottom out into” Hxro.
Staging a derivatives platform atop Solana (or any blockchain, really) means full transparency into each trade and trader, Gunsberg said. That can benefit the entire market by making clear as code who is taking on inappropriate risks, he said.
“Likely one of the causes of the issues that we're dealing with now in the marketplace is a lot of risks ended up being managed almost by relationship, where you looked at a firm like Three Arrows Capital, and made assumptions about them without actually doing the level of due diligence that needed to be done,” Gunsberg noted.
Hxro isn't the only effort to bring DeFi futures trading to Solana: There’s also Drift, Cypher and Zeta.
Read more: Coinbase Launches First Crypto Derivatives Product Aimed at Retail Traders
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Exodus joins stablecoin race with MoonPay-backed digital dollar
The public crypto wallet firm joins Circle and PayPal in issuing stablecoins.
What to know:
- Exodus is launching a fully reserved, USD-backed stablecoin with MoonPay to power self-custodial payments in its crypto wallet app.
- The stablecoin will support Exodus Pay, a new feature enabling users to spend and send digital dollars without relying on centralized exchanges.
- With the launch, Exodus joins a short list of public companies, including PayPal and Circle, backing stablecoin products.
Top Stories
