Looking at asset security from the perspective of force majeure events in exchanges: How does ApeX Pro achieve user withdrawal freedom?

Author: ApeX Pro

Exchanges serve as the infrastructure for asset aggregation and circulation in the crypto industry, and asset security issues have always attracted significant attention. Centralized exchanges often cease operations due to regulatory issues, policies, misappropriation of user assets, or poor management, leading to users being unable to withdraw their assets. This not only results in substantial asset losses for users but also contradicts the decentralized ethos of blockchain. In 2022 alone, there were no fewer than 10 exchanges that went bankrupt or suddenly ceased operations, with the third-largest exchange globally, FTX, collapsing within ten days due to allegations of misappropriating user funds and potential financial liabilities. Just yesterday, the BKEK exchange, which had been operating for several years, ceased operations due to allegations of money laundering, preventing users from withdrawing their assets.

The security risks associated with centralized exchanges undoubtedly serve as the greatest warning for users. For users, the way centralized exchanges manage their assets and control trading data poses significant risks. So, in the face of the rigid demand for secure trading, how should users choose an exchange to ensure the safety of their assets and achieve true withdrawal freedom?

The multi-chain decentralized derivatives exchange ApeX Pro allows users to freely manage their assets. Users can ensure complete control over the safety of their funds through self-custody of assets while enjoying an efficient experience comparable to centralized exchanges. How does ApeX Pro ensure the safety of user assets and provide an efficient experience?

Smart contract management and non-custodial model ensure asset security

In centralized exchanges, users' funds are held in centralized accounts, and in the current lack of strict regulation in the crypto industry, the risk of user assets being misappropriated or stolen is significant. Even if centralized exchanges use Merkle trees to prove their fund reserves to demonstrate the safety of user assets, this method is still unreliable. There are various risks, such as previous fraud, issues with the credibility of third-party auditing agencies, and the inability to verify the timeliness of fund reserves. Proving through Merkle trees cannot fully demonstrate the status of asset reserves or assess the financial risks of the platform itself. Only through a decentralized, non-custodial model for user assets can users fully control the safety of their funds.

ApeX Pro stores and manages funds through on-chain smart contracts, ensuring absolute openness and transparency, with even the operators having no right to selfishly misappropriate funds. Every transaction operation on ApeX Pro requires user signatures on L2 and periodically synchronizes the status to the L1 custody contract. Additionally, ApeX Pro integrates Starkex's zero-knowledge proof solution to ensure data consistency between on-chain and off-chain. If the zk proof does not validate the L2 transaction status, no status updates will occur on L1, thus ensuring the security and validity of each transaction. The execution logic is as follows:

• Users cannot transfer their funds without a valid signature on the relevant transfer request, ensuring that user assets cannot be transferred without signed authorization.

• The StarkEx status submitted on L1 reflects all asset transfer records that occurred in the L2 environment, ensuring status synchronization and guaranteeing data consistency and the security and validity of user transactions, preventing the misappropriation of user funds through malicious tampering of transaction data.

• The same asset transfer request cannot be executed twice, ensuring data consistency. No one can steal user assets by constructing false transactions, ensuring the safety of user assets.

Users can withdraw freely under any circumstances

Unlike other exchanges that freeze user funds directly after unexpected events halt operations or suddenly crash, on ApeX Pro, even if the exchange's functions are disabled, users can initiate a forced withdrawal to take their assets. If the exchange cannot complete withdrawals for any reason, users can initiate a forced withdrawal.

If ApeX Pro fails to process a user's withdrawal request within a specific timeframe (7 days) for any reason, users can freeze ApeX Pro's smart contract and initiate a forced exit transaction to retrieve their funds. The forced withdrawal feature ensures that ApeX Pro operates entirely in a user self-custody mode, allowing users to achieve withdrawal freedom under any circumstances and ensuring the safety of their funds.

Order book model provides an efficient experience comparable to centralized exchanges

By combining the StarkWare Layer 2 scalability engine (StarkEx) with an off-chain matching model, ApeX Pro not only achieves the non-custodial characteristics of DeFi funds but also reaches the high efficiency and usability of centralized exchanges.

ApeX Pro implements instant matching of flash trades through an order book model, providing high liquidity and depth experiences comparable to centralized exchanges. Users can trade on ApeX Pro by simply linking their wallets without the need for KYC. Additionally, due to enhanced L2 scalability and the use of zero-knowledge proof verification, users do not incur Gas fees for each transaction, enabling 0 Gas fee trading on ApeX Pro. Meanwhile, to meet users' multi-chain interaction needs, ApeX Pro supports multi-chain deposits and withdrawals, including Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, and Optimism.

Rich and innovative financial products allow users to share multiple benefits

To meet users' diverse trading and investment needs, ApeX Pro not only offers derivatives contract trading but also collaborates with the decentralized finance protocol FinX to launch an innovative Smart LP product, providing users with secure on-chain investment returns. Users do not need to participate with dual tokens; they can simply purchase SLP quotas through USDC to share the liquidity returns generated by SLP. Unlike AMM model LP investments, the SLP smart market-making yield pool uses a flexible AI model to monitor the performance of various investment portfolios and predict market conditions, offering users good and stable returns through complex market-making strategies, reducing the risks of impermanent loss and investment risks from one-sided markets, better protecting users' asset safety and providing better investment returns. Users can enter to view remaining shares and make purchases at any time.

Thus, it is evident that ApeX Pro not only ensures the safety of user assets and achieves an efficient experience comparable to centralized exchanges through a high-performance matching engine but also offers a variety of financial investment products that allow users to obtain real on-chain returns. It is not only a quality choice for user trading but also a valuable asset for investors to position themselves in the DEX ecosystem.