Trader Joe is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange (DEX). It was initially launched in 2021 as a Uniswap V2 fork and now operates as a separate Automatic Market Maker (AMM). The Trader Joe crypto exchange offers token swapping, yield farming, and liquidity aggregation.
The platform is based on the Avalanche network. Despite the similar name, the Trader Joe cryptocurrency exchange is in no way affiliated with the Trader Joe’s supermarket chain. Some services may be geo-blocked.
Markets
Built as an Automated Market Maker, Trader Joe differs from centralized cryptocurrency exchanges (CEXs). For instance, there is no Trader Joe spot market in the conventional sense. Instead, users can trade tokens using the swapping model.
Although margin and leverage trading are currently unavailable, the team plans to introduce these services in the foreseeable future. Since the Trader Joe crypto exchange was built on the EVM-compatible Avalanche blockchain, it can support all ERC-20 tokens.
The platform hosts more than 500 trading pairs and over 200 digital assets. However, it doesn’t support any fiat currencies. The price curves for the Trader Joe trading pairs are discretized into a unit known as bins. Users inject liquidity into the Liquidity Book to improve overall capital efficiency.
The Trader Joe cryptocurrency exchange uses a mechanism known as Concentrated Liquidity. It allows liquidity providers to select a specific price range to support. Users then earn rewards for providing liquidity as long as the price remains within that range.
The platform has a native asset known as JOE (JOE). It’s a governance and utility token. By holding JOE tokens, users can vote on decisions regarding the protocol. By staking the asset, customers receive a portion of the exchange’s revenues. You can learn about the Trader Joe crypto price, volume, and the story of the asset here.
The protocol uses pre-programmed formulas to calculate the Trader Joe exchange fees. The method has not changed significantly between V1 and V2 of the platform. The base fee rate is 0.3% per trade. Of this amount, 0.25% is allocated between the liquidity providers, while the remaining 0.05% is used as staking rewards.
Traders may also be subject to variable fees. They are based on market volatility and ticks (bins). The Trader Joe crypto fees for volatility are calculated per bin to ensure that the fee distribution is fair and equal for all liquidity providers. Transactions may incur gas fees that are paid in AVAX. Users must have at least 0.1 AVAX in their account for gas fees.
Other Services
The Trader Joe cryptocurrency exchange is part of a broader DeFi ecosystem. It includes a range of financial services that are interconnected within the network. Aside from trading, the platform offers the following:
- Liquidity pools
- Staking and yield farming
- Launchpad
- Lending
- NFT marketplace
Banker Joe is a lending protocol, also known as the money market. It allows users to borrow and lend funds on the platform while retaining their custody. Rocket Joe is a launchpad platform for Avalanche-based blockchain projects. Users can stake JOE tokens to support teams and receive liquidity provider tokens when the project launches.
Joepegs Marketplace is a platform for trading non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Here, users can mint, buy, sell, and store NFTs by connecting their wallets. NFTs can also be acquired via auctions. Joepegs Marketplace supports ERC-751 tokens, and the Trader Joe crypto prices are listed in AVAX.
About the Company
The Trader Joe crypto exchange was launched in June 2021. The identities of its founders are known only by the pseudonyms Cryptofish and 0xMurloc. As a decentralized organization, Trader Joe doesn’t have headquarters.
Trader Joe is considered to be one of the biggest decentralized exchanges on Avalanche based on total value locked. It accounts for approximately a third of the DeFi protocol market share. You can see the current Trader Joe volume above.
In September 2021, the platform announced an incentives program in collaboration with the Avalanche Foundation. The total was $20 million in liquidity mining rewards, accounting for $10 million in JOE and $10 million in AVAX. At the time, this sum accounted for about 7% of the total market capitalization for the JOE token.
In August 2022, the platform announced the launch of the new Liquidity Book model. This technology was an upgrade from the liquidity mechanisms used by an older iteration of Trader Joe. According to DeFi market data, at the time, the 24-hour Trader Joe trade volume averaged at about $16 million, accounting for about 0.7% of the whole sector.