0x Protocol (ZRX) is an infrastructure protocol designed to facilitate the creation and operation of permissionless markets without the need for traditional financial intermediaries, supporting a wide variety of crypto assets.
ZRX is the protocol’s ERC20 governance native token. ZRX holders can vote on proposals affecting the protocol. ZRX offers rewards to relayers, and allows stakeholders to vote or delegate votes on network changes. The total supply of ZRX is 1 billion.
Developed by ZeroEx Inc and co-founded by Will Warren and Amir Bandeali in 2016, entered the decentralized finance (DeFi) scene with a notable fundraising event in July 2017. It raised $24 million in ether through a public sale of ZRX tokens, attracting investment from prominent firms such as Polychain Capital, Blockchain Capital, and Pantera Capital. The advisory board includes well-known personalities like Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, Augur co-founder Joey Krug, and Scalar Capital co-founder Linda Xie.
The protocol enables the tokenization of assets and their exchange on the Ethereum blockchain, involving two main roles: 'makers,' who provide liquidity, and 'takers,' who utilize it. Relayers are crucial for operating the protocol's order book, enabling direct asset exchanges without taking custody, thus maintaining transactions on the blockchain.
