We are thrilled to announce Shadow Exchange, a new innovative concentrated liquidity exchange built for Fantom Sonic. Leveraging Sonic’s improved smart contract execution, Shadow Exchange will improve efficiency and liquidity conditions of Fantom’s best native pairs.
Why Shadow Exchange?
In a sea of decentralized exchanges (DEXs) on Fantom one might wonder, why another ONE? Shadow Exchange is not just another addition to the multitude, It’s a response to the demand for more flexible, efficient and user-centric trading solutions that go beyond traditional AMM offerings (while also taking advantage of the enhanced TPS and finality of Fantom Sonic).
- Concentrated Liquidity Farming Incentives
- Custom Fee Split Between Liquidity Providers & xSHADOW Voters
- Improved Rebase, Staking, and Tokenomics
Dual-Token Dynamics: SHADOW and xSHADOW

At the core of Shadow Exchange’s approach are our two native tokens: SHADOW and xSHADOW. This dual-token model is devised to empower users with flexibility, voting rights, and rewards:
- SHADOW: The primary token for trading, staking, and liquidity provision.
- xSHADOW: Represents staked SHADOW, granting holders voting rights and a share of the protocol’s fees and emissions.
100% of ALL emissions go to gauges and xSHADOW; there are no team emissions or other distributions.
PVP Rebasing Mechanism
A core element of the Solidly model was the rebasing of locked position sizes to prevent a user’s stake from being diluted by new emissions. This anti-dilution mechanic for veTOKEN holders allowed them to maintain the same percentage of ownership of the protocol fees week over week without requiring them to buy and lock more tokens.
However, this method has a significant flaw: the absence of an exit penalty mechanism. Without such a measure, the system accumulates dead voting power, as users hold veTOKENs indefinitely, without active participation, and still influence the protocol without contributing to its current or future success.
xSHADOW fixes this with a unique “PVP Rebase” system, acting as a dilution protection mechanism for its holders. Unlike traditional rebasing models that adjust locked position sizes to counteract the effects of new emissions, xSHADOW’s allows users to exit early, sacrificing 50% of their voting power. This rebase mechanism not only discourages premature exits but also ensures that the remaining participants’ stakes are not diluted by new entries.
No Long-Term Locks
Shadow Exchange eliminates the constraints of long-term token locks by abandoning the veTOKEN model with xSHADOW. This new system has a MAXIMUM lockup of six-months, whilst offering users the ability to exit either linearly, or immediately with 50% penalty. It’s important to note that linearly exiting means users will lose their ability to vote on gauges, prioritizing those who remain actively engaged with the platform.
Custom Fee-Share
In addition to concentrated liquidity, Shadow Exchange offers custom fee splits for liquidity providers. Fees and emissions reflect the risk that liquidity providers take in providing liquidity to expected volatility. Depending on the pool, fee-splits can be optimized to better incentivize liquidity providers and best support the pool in question. Popular high volume pairs like FTM/USDC may opt for a higher fee split and reduced SHADOW emissions. Whereas new or exotic pairings may choose to earn a lower percentage of fees and increased SHADOW emissions until volume picks up. Optimizing fee-split for high fee generating pools is ideal as their fees can fully sustain and incentivize these high volume pairs. Either way, liquidity providers and projects can now dictate how their liquidity is rewarded.
Concentrated Liquidity

At Shadow Exchange, we’ve refined the concept of concentrated liquidity (CL) to optimize capital efficiency and reward our liquidity providers. This approach allows participants to tailor their liquidity to effective price ranges, enhancing their potential returns compared to traditional liquidity provision methods. By focusing capital where it’s most effective, Shadow offers superior rewards for liquidity providers but also ensures tighter spreads and more stable pricing for traders, regardless of how much overall liquidity exists.

In a demonstration of concentrated liquidity’s efficiency on Shadow Exchange, consider Alice and Bob each looking to provide liquidity to an FTM/USDC pool with $1,000,000 at an FTM price of $0.45 USDC. Alice spreads her investment across the full price range, by depositing $1m in FTM/USDC. Bob, however, opts for a concentrated approach, allocating $183,500 within the 0.3–0.6$ range and keeping the remainder.
Despite Alice’s larger capital input, both earn equal fees if FTM/USDC stays within Bob’s chosen range. Moreover, if FTM were to go to zero, Bob’s strategy limits his potential loss to $159,000 compared to Alice’s $1,000,000, giving him flexibility to reinvest or hedge with his remaining capital — while still earning the same rewards!
This implementation is the most ideal on a chain like Fantom, slippage is real and exasperated with low liquidity and by concentrating liquidity, Shadow Exchange will perform better with significantly less liquidity than your typical AMM.
Initial Supply Distribution

The initial supply distribution of SHADOW tokens is structured to support the long-term health and growth of Shadow Exchange. Our initial token distribution is designed to ensure a balanced allocation that prioritizes sustainability and community involvement:
- Airdrop (20%)
- Contributors (20%)
- Partnerships (20%)
- Reserves (20%)
- Liquidity Generation Event (LGE) (10%)
- Protocol Owned Liquidity (POL) (10%)
Important Dates
Stay tuned as we release our plans to reward the Fantom community — details on this airdrop will be revealed shortly! We will also be releasing another article which will delve into the specifics of the supply numbers and details surrounding the LGE.
March 9th: LGE Event
End of March/Early April: Official Shadow dAPP Launch!
Join the Shadow Exchange Community
As we embark on this exciting journey, we invite you to join the Shadow Exchange community and be a part of the future of Fantom:
LGE Event: March 9, 2024 11:00 AM
Shadow dAPP Launch:
Late March/Early April (This tells us Fantoms Sonic is on the way before then ;)
Website — shadowdex.fi
Twitter — @ShadowDexFi
Discord — discord.gg/shadowexchange