BlackRock Leads $5 Million Investment in Perpetual Protocol DEX, How Does Vest Fight Against the "Crypto Scythe"?

Recently, the cryptocurrency community was once again thrown into chaos, with the emergence of allegations of malicious selling by a GPS token market maker, causing a sharp drop in the token's price and instant substantial losses for investors. The RedStone project was also accused of last-minute changes to its airdrop rules, leaving numerous long-awaited community members empty-handed.

These events inevitably bring to mind the chronic issues of the cryptocurrency world: asymmetric information, whimsical rule changes, and the strong preying on the weak. As Twitter user @maik2hello lamented in a post, "The current coin market is beyond 'messy'."

The traditional financial markets have long had precedents of chaos: market makers manipulating prices, rampant insider trading. In the unregulated crypto market, these problems are exacerbated, and retail investors have almost nowhere to escape.

It is against this backdrop that the Vest project emerged, carrying a clear mission to reshape fairness through technology and mechanisms.

Seeing Injustice Amidst a Market Collapse, Vest's Mission

Vest is a quantitative research company dedicated to building real-time, universal risk pricing financial infrastructure. Its core product, Vest Exchange, is a decentralized perpetual contract trading platform.

Vest's Core Product—Vest Exchange

Unlike traditional CEXs or some DEXs that rely on order books and market makers, Vest Exchange ensures the transparency and fairness of transaction pricing through state-of-the-art cryptographic technology. It is like fitting a "firewall" to the crypto market, precisely combating common liquidity issues and market manipulation seen in traditional markets.

In traditional order book exchanges, traders are often squeezed by institutional and high-frequency traders' "predatory strategies"—such as front-running or price manipulation. At Vest Exchange, each transaction directly matches with a unified liquidity pool and is dynamically priced by the zkRisk engine, eliminating unfair competition.

zkRisk: A Transparent Risk Pricing Engine, Vest's "Brain"

zkRisk is the core pricing mechanism of Vest Exchange, serving as the platform's "super-intelligent steward." It dynamically monitors individual positions, account risk exposure, and overall system risk, adjusting pricing based on market dynamics with the goal of minimizing risk rather than maximizing profit.

Through zkRisk, Vest has established a "fair playing field": no one can "front-run" through unfair means, the impact of market fluctuations on trades is minimized, and liquidity remains stable.

More importantly, zkRisk makes transaction fees fully transparent. Fees are directly tied to the introduced risk, eliminating the opaque and confusing costs present in traditional markets. This design not only protects users but also ensures privacy and security through zero-knowledge proof technology, avoiding common issues like Miner Extractable Value (MEV).

Vest's technology is like the "supercar" of the blockchain world—fast, efficient, and smart enough to navigate complex market environments.

Funding Details and Backers

According to BlockBeats news, on March 12, trading protocol Vest announced a $5 million funding round, with participation from BlackRock, Jane Street Group, Selini Capital, Amber Group, QCQ Group, and Big Brain VC, among others. This investor lineup demonstrates Vest's bridging role between traditional finance and the crypto ecosystem.

Although the specific identities of the Vest team have not been disclosed, receiving the approval of BlackRock and Jane Street indicates that the team likely comprises top talent from both blockchain development and the traditional financial sector.

The support of these heavyweight institutions not only provides Vest with financial backing but may also bring strategic guidance and market credibility. Additionally, the involvement of crypto-native entities like Amber Group offers practical support for Vest's product implementation and ecosystem expansion.

From Ondo to Vest: BlackRock's On-Chain Maneuver

As the world's largest asset management company, BlackRock has been making frequent moves recently, and its ambitions in on-chain infrastructure are evident from tokenized funds to RWA. In March 2024, its tokenized fund BUIDL (tokenizing traditional financial assets primarily cash, U.S. Treasury Bills, and repurchase agreements) launched on Ethereum, quickly attracting $5.2 billion in assets, capturing nearly a third of the tokenized corporate bond market.

Subsequently, BlackRock, through partnerships with institutions like Securitize, has driven the RWA market from $100 million in 2023 to over $13 billion. Looking at another aspect of the chessboard, Ondo Finance, with its OUSG token directly pegged to BUIDL, provides retail investors with a channel for investing in tokenized corporate bonds, while Vest's entry completes BlackRock's positioning in the on-chain derivatives market.

The prosperity of the RWA market will undoubtedly bring greater liquidity to the Perp DEX market. Vest Exchange, with its zkRisk engine and zkps, is committed to building a fair and efficient Perp DEX, aligning with BlackRock's goal of transparency and liquidity.

It can be foreseen that if Vest can combine a Hyperliquid-style high-performance architecture (zero gas fees + on-chain order book), it may become the next breakthrough in BlackRock's on-chain strategy. From Ondo's asset tokenization to Vest's trading innovation, BlackRock is using technology as a pawn, laying out a grand chessboard of deep integration between traditional finance and crypto.

As BlackRock's CEO Larry Fink said: Tokenized securities are the "next generation of the market."