About

OAX Foundation set out in 2017 with the conviction that decentralized finance and digital assets would be an integral part of the future of mainstream finance and commerce. The Foundation’s deep-seated beliefs for the collaborative nature of decentralized finance has served as a basis of engagement for working with key players in the space to explore and push the potential of technology.

History

OAX was first introduced at Consensus 2017. The whitepaper that was initially released by the team outlined four key areas that decentralized exchanges needed to improve on, namely: speed, scalability, interoperability and trust. While the team explored various operation models during the development stages, they eventually focused on building up the technology to address the issues at hand.

From attending many of the industry networking events and participating in various working groups in the space, the team set out to develop their 0x-based prototype in June 2018, in collaboration with developers from Enuma. The team then worked on a Layer-2 solution that sought to address the four identified weaknesses, developing it to use off-chain state channels to address the performance issues of Ethereum blockchain. L2X was eventually open sourced in August 2019 and is available on the company's Github page.

In February 2020, OAX Foundation announced that it would be developing code and features to be useable on the Polkadot Network. Through Polkadot, the team believed DeFi opportunities would expand the potential of the digital asset space, and expand the prominence that decentralized exchanges would hold in digital asset trading. The key features, demonstrations, and links to their testnet are available on the Foundation's website.

The Foundation has built a network of connections with ongoing discussions of strategic partnerships and open sourcing their work in the spirit of decentralization. The team's belief that inclusivity and working on the technology as a community is an integral part of the digital asset industry's success in the long term. More recently, the team has also begun expanding their grant program to work with the community to foster and develop the future of DeFi.