dYdX Ends Promo Shortly After Community Backlash

Decentralized crypto exchange dYdX has canceled its recently launched $25 first deposit bonus promotion less than two days after it was launched, the platform said via Twitter on 2 September.

According to the announcement, the dYdX promo campaign was terminated due to the “extremely overwhelming demand” from users, with the platform claiming it had onboarded “thousands of new users” while it was active. Introduced on 31 August, the promotion offered a $25 bonus to new users that made a $500 deposit or more on their first transaction and passed a “liveness check”.

Although dYdX cited “overwhelming demand” for scrapping the campaign, the exchange was actually scrutinized by the crypto community over the “liveness check”, which used a webcam to scan a user’s image, and compare it with a database to see if he had another account. Many users implied on Twitter that these checks were similar to invasions of privacy, with some prominent crypto traders and figures going as far as to say they will move away from the platform until there are some “meaningful changes”.

Shortly before the campaign was canceled, dYdX made an attempt to push back against the community backlash by pointing out that it did not require users personal information. It also noted that participation was “completely optional”, and that the image verification was put in place to prevent fraud. This explanation, however, was not enough to convince the entire community, and as a result the trade volume on dYdX has fallen by around 20% over the past 24 hours.