ZKX
It launched its token six weeks before it shut down
A decentralised perpetual futures exchange on Starknet that pitched trading as a social game, with leaderboards and head-to-head trading battles.
- Capital raised (announced)
Recorded announced backing; this is separate from cash received, customer deposits and money recovered.
Funding
| Round | Date | Announced | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seed round | 2022 | ||
| Strategic round (amount not disclosed) | 2024 |
Announced is what was said at the time. Cash actually received is rarely disclosed and is not assumed to match.
People
| Name | Role | Period | Now | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eduard Jubany Tur | — | Not established | Oct 2026 | |
| Naman Sehgal | — | Co-Founder & CEO, Innflux.xyz (since February 2025) | Oct 2026 | |
| Vitaly Yakovlev | — | Chief AI Officer, Stealth AI Startup (since November 2025) | Oct 2026 |
Timeline
2021
Started by Eduard Jubany Tur, Naman Sehgal and Vitaly Yakovlev; the company described itself as based in Dubai.
14 July 2022
The company reported a 30-person team and expected mainnet in the fourth quarter.
19 June 2024
Flowdesk, GCR and DeWhales joined. The token listed on KuCoin, Gate.io and Bitget with staking and an airdrop; 33% of a 100 million supply unlocked at launch.
30 July 2024
Announced by the founder on X.
31 August 2024
The founder said token vesting and distribution would continue after it.
How it ended
The founder said ZKX had found no economically viable path: user engagement was minimal, trading volume had fallen, daily revenue covered only a fraction of cloud server costs, and the token, whose launch he said had not met expectations, could not sustain the protocol. All markets were delisted and open positions closed, with funds returned to users' trading accounts to withdraw during a sunset period.
Still alive
Open spot
ZKX is gone. Is your derivatives exchange still running?
Spotlight your project here.
Sources
8 sources behind this page.
- 1Starknet-based ZKX protocol shutters, blaming lack of users · Cointelegraph · Jul 2024
- 2ZKX plunges 50% as protocol winds down services due to low user demand · crypto.news · Jul 2024
- 3Decentralized derivatives protocol ZKX raises $4.5m in seed funding from StarkWare, Alameda Research & more · GlobeNewswire (press release issued by ZKX) · Jul 2022
- 4LinkedIn profile of Naman Sehgal · LinkedIn (self-published profile, viewed by a person) · user-editable
- 5LinkedIn profile of Vitaly Yakovlev · LinkedIn (self-published profile, viewed by a person) · user-editable
- 6Starknet-Based ZKX Protocol Shuts Down Citing Low Usage and Token Value · Unchained · Jul 2024
- 7DeFi platform ZKX raises $4.5 million Seed round · Wamda · Jul 2022
- 8First Social Decentralized Perpetual Exchange raised $7.6M in total, Introduces Governance Token · Yahoo Finance (GlobeNewswire press release issued by ZKX) · Jun 2024
Every figure above is clickable and opens the sources behind it. Copies were stored when each source was read, so a citation still resolves after the page it came from is gone.