The question “how many people work at dYdX” has three different answers depending on which entity the reader means. According to Foundation publications, per Juliano’s Letting Go post, and per Ecosystem Report data, the dYdX Foundation is an independent not-for-profit headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, separate from the developer of the dYdX protocol. Per Foundation reporting, the 2025 protocol scale figures land in the trillions while the developer side stays small.
Key Takeaways
- Per Juliano’s Letting Go post, dYdX founder Antonio Juliano announced the layoff of 35% of the dYdX core team in October 2024.
- Per Antonio Juliano’s founder history, dYdX was founded on July 27, 2017, by Antonio Juliano, an ex-Coinbase and ex-Uber engineer.
- per Juliano’s Medium history, by the end of Q1 2023 the dYdX team had grown to 50 people, the headcount the founder disclosed for that period.
- According to Foundation publications, the independent dYdX Foundation is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, and operates a Council that includes Arthur Cheong, Rebecca Rettig, and Markus Spillman.
- per the Ecosystem Annual Report, all-time cumulative trading volume reached approximately $1.55 trillion across all dYdX protocol versions through full-year 2025.
- According to Foundation announcements, the dYdX Foundation’s CEO Charles d’Haussy was appointed on October 10, 2022, joining from ConsenSys.
- Per Juliano’s Return post, Antonio Juliano stepped away from dYdX for 6 months before returning as CEO in October 2024 to run the company in what he called Founder Mode.
Editor’s Choice
- A layoff in October 2024 cut 35% of the dYdX core team, announced in Juliano’s “Letting Go” blog post.
- dYdX was founded on July 27, 2017, and named for the trio of differential operators dy, dx, and the slash that joins them.
- The dYdX team passed 35 people in October 2022, at the offsite where the company gathered.
- The team reached 50 people by the end of Q1 2023, the figure disclosed by the founder for that period.
- The dYdX Foundation operates as 1 independent Swiss entity separate from the protocol developer, deploying governance support only.
- Q4 2025 trading volume reached approximately $34.3 billion, up 45% quarter over quarter, the strongest quarter of the year.
- The dYdX protocol now offers 386 markets and has distributed approximately $48 million in rewards as of the 2025 Annual Report period.
dYdX Headcount by Entity
Conflating these three is the single largest source of confused employee-count answers online.
| Entity | Type | Location | Headcount signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| dYdX Trading (a.k.a. dYdX Labs) | For-profit developer | San Francisco and New York City | Fifty per founder’s disclosure; smaller after the October reset |
| dYdX Foundation | Independent not-for-profit | Zug, Switzerland | Three-member Council plus CEO and small operating team |
| dYdX subDAOs (Operations, Treasury, Grants) | Community workstreams | Distributed | Community members compensated in DYDX rewards, not employees |
Source: dYdX Foundation About; Antonio Juliano, “The History of dYdX” (Medium); dYdX Foundation “Welcome Charles d’Haussy”
For context on how the dYdX sits inside the broader decentralized exchange landscape, the operator team’s small footprint is striking against the protocol’s scale.
dYdX Team Growth Timeline
Each milestone above is taken from a dated disclosure rather than from cross-time arithmetic.
Recent Developments
- January 14, 2026: The dYdX Foundation published the 2025 dYdX Ecosystem Annual Report, reporting all-time cumulative trading volume of approximately $1.55 trillion across all protocol versions.
- January 2026: The dYdX Foundation’s Q4 2025 volume disclosure placed the quarter at approximately $34.3 billion, up 45% quarter over quarter, the strongest quarter of the year.
- January 2026: The Ecosystem Report named CoinRoutes, CCXT, and Foxify as distribution partners expanding institutional and programmatic routing access.
- 2025 Annual Report period: dYdX Trading published full-year metrics showing 386 markets available and approximately 98,200 DYDX token holders.
- May 29, 2026: The dYdX careers page was last published on May 29, 2026, with NYC and SF as the work locations.
- October 2024 (reset anchor): Antonio Juliano announced the 35% layoff of the core team, framing the move as a course correction.
dYdX Foundation Council and Leadership
The Foundation’s published roster is small and structurally separate from the dYdX developer. The Council, not the founder, governs the Foundation’s strategy.
| Role | Name | Source detail |
|---|---|---|
| Foundation CEO | Charles d’Haussy | Appointed October 10, 2022 |
| Council President | Arthur Cheong | Listed in Foundation About page |
| Council Member | Rebecca Rettig | Listed in Foundation About page |
| Council Member | Markus Spillman | Listed in Foundation About page |
Source: dYdX Foundation About; dYdX Foundation “Welcome Charles d’Haussy” (October 2022)
The contrast is the point: the Foundation is structured for permanence and protocol stewardship.
What dYdX’s 2025 Protocol Scale Implies for Team Size
The protocol’s scale relative to its operator headcount is the under-discussed feature of this query.
| 2025 protocol metric | Reported figure |
|---|---|
| All-time cumulative trading volume | ~$1.55 trillion |
| Q4 2025 trading volume | ~$34.3 billion (+45% QoQ) |
| Cumulative protocol fees since v4 | $64.7 million |
| Markets available | 386 |
| DYDX token holders | ~98,200 |
| Cumulative staking rewards distributed | ~$48 million |
Source: dYdX Annual Report 2025; dYdX Foundation 2025 Ecosystem Annual Report (January 14, 2026)
Hiring Posture and Open Roles
Readers who track the broader crypto exchange market data will recognize the pattern. Trim teams that survive a downturn hire back against tighter role specifications than they had at peak.
The 2024 Reset: Layoffs and the CEO Return
- Juliano disclosed the layoff of 35% of the dYdX core team in October 2024.
- The disclosure followed a 6-month stretch in which Juliano had stepped away from dYdX earlier in 2024.
- The founder’s disclosed headcount stood at 50 people by the end of Q1 2023.
Antonio Juliano framed the reset across two paired blog posts.
In “Letting Go,” Juliano wrote Today, I made the incredibly difficult decision to lay off 35% of the dYdX core team. The post described the cut as a realization that the company built was different from the company dYdX must be.
In “The Return,” he announced re-assuming the CEO role and what he labeled Founder Mode. Six months ago, I stepped away from dYdX. Juliano stated he returned because the leadership needed must come from the founder, citing moral authority as the basis for implementing changes others cannot.
Why it matters: The two posts establish that the October 2024 layoff and the founder’s return to the CEO role were the same coordinated event, sized to the company’s actual mission rather than a crisis pivot triggered by external pressure. The reset reframed dYdX as a smaller and more focused organization than the peak-headcount version Juliano had stepped away from earlier that year.
The disclosed figures combine into a single timeline: a 35% core-team cut in October 2024, a disclosed headcount of 50 people by end of Q1 2023, a three-member Foundation Council operating separately in Zug, and a 2025 protocol that recorded scale numbers measured in trillions.
By the numbers: The 2025 dYdX protocol surfaces approximately $1.55 trillion in cumulative trading volume across all versions, 386 markets active at year-end, $64.7 million in cumulative protocol fees since v4, approximately 98,200 DYDX token holders, and approximately $48 million in cumulative staking rewards distributed.
Conclusion
dYdX’s headcount answer is a three-entity sum, not a single number. The figures below recap the disclosed numbers:
- The dYdX team reached 50 people by the end of Q1 2023 per the founder’s disclosure.
- Juliano disclosed a 35% reduction of the dYdX core team in October 2024.
- The dYdX Foundation runs a Council in Zug, Switzerland, structurally separate from the developer.
- The protocol’s 2025 scale includes 386 markets and approximately $48 million in rewards distributed.
- Cumulative trading volume across all protocol versions reached approximately $1.55 trillion through full-year 2025.
The Foundation’s January 2026 Ecosystem Report and the May 2026 careers refresh together suggest the post-reset team is rebuilding selectively against a smaller and more focused org chart than dYdX carried at peak.
