Market makers offer trades through order book & make money on bid-ask spreads paid by takers.

0x is a non-custodial exchange protocol built on Ethereum. 0x was founded by Amir Bandeali & Will Warren and launched in 2016.

ZRX tokenholders own and govern the protocol. They currently do not take any of the total trading fees paid by traders (revenue). 0x’s investors include Coinbase Ventures, Jump Capital, Pantera Capital, etc.

governance

github

twitter

discord

etherscan

website

Exchanges (DEX)

# 0x Expenses Methodology

## 1. Overview

The 0x expenses metric measures the operational costs incurred by the 0x protocol in the form of token incentives paid to users or market makers. This metric quantifies direct monetary expenses that the protocol pays out as incentives. Currently, the 0x protocol does not distribute token incentives, so this metric consistently returns zero across all time periods and chains.

The metric answers the business question: "How much does 0x spend on token-based incentive programs?" The calculation approach uses the protocol's token incentive payments as a proxy for operational expenses.

## 2. Data sources

The calculation ultimately relies on:
- **0x protocol transaction data**: Raw trading activity data from the 0x DEX aggregator including trade volumes, token pairs, timestamps, and transaction identifiers
- **Chain-specific trading records**: Transaction data across multiple blockchain networks where 0x operates
- **Token pair metadata**: Symbol information for maker and taker tokens in trades

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Trade data extraction
- **Purpose**: Extracts and structures raw trading activity from 0x protocol
- **Logic**: The system processes raw transaction data from the 0x protocol's trading activity. Each record includes trade timestamp, transaction hash, log index, token pair information (`takerTokenSymbol` and `makerTokenSymbol`), trading volume in USD, and blockchain network identifier. The data is classified under the "Exchange Order Book" business line with "exchanges" market sector and "dex" business segment identifiers
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` for trade timing, `transaction_hash` for unique identification, `trading_volume` in USD value, `chain` for blockchain network, and concatenated token pair names as `account_name`

### Component B: Trading volume aggregation  
- **Purpose**: Aggregates individual trades into daily trading volumes by chain and product
- **Logic**: Raw trade data is grouped by day using timestamp truncation, blockchain network, market sector, business segment, and product identifiers. Trading volumes are summed for each unique combination. The aggregation creates daily snapshots of total trading activity across all supported chains
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` truncated to day boundary, `trading_volume` as sum of USD trade values, `chain_id` for blockchain identification, and dimensional identifiers for business classification

### Component C: Fee calculation
- **Purpose**: Determines protocol fees collected from trading activity
- **Logic**: The system inherits the time and dimensional structure from trading volumes but sets all fee values to zero. This reflects 0x protocol's business model where it does not charge direct trading fees to users. The calculation maintains the same timestamp grain, chain identifiers, and product classifications as the trading volume data
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` and `chain_id` from trading volumes, `fees` hardcoded to zero value

### Component D: Token incentives calculation
- **Purpose**: Calculates token-based incentive payments made by the protocol
- **Logic**: Using the same temporal and dimensional structure as fees, the system sets all token incentive values to zero. This indicates that 0x protocol does not currently operate token incentive programs or liquidity mining rewards. The calculation maintains consistency with the fee structure while representing the absence of incentive payments
- **Key fields**: `timestamp`, `chain_id`, and `product_id` from fees data, `token_incentives` set to zero

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: The expenses metric directly uses the `token_incentives` value from the token incentives calculation as the expenses amount
- **Currency conversion**: No currency conversion is required as the token incentives are already set to zero in USD terms
- **Time aggregation**: Daily boundaries are maintained throughout the calculation, with timestamps truncated to day level
- **Final calculation**: Expenses equal the token incentives value, which is consistently zero. The result undergoes schema validation and gap filling through the finalize metric process, and chain availability filtering ensures only supported blockchain networks are included in the final output

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

Total project operating and incentive expenses.

0xZRX

Archived

Expenses

Expenses

Competitive landscape

Chain breakdown