Seed Round Raised $8M, Why Is Bulk Trade Taking on the Perp DEX Red Sea?

Original Title: "Gold Rush Handbook | Why Does Bulk Trade Gain Toly's Favor?"

Original Author: KarenZ, Foresight News

In the Perp DEX space, despite the continuous evolution of liquidity and user interfaces, constrained by the underlying on-chain consensus mechanism and block generation time, DEXs have always struggled to fully match CEXs in latency and throughput.

Bulk Trade took a different path, opting for a technical approach distinct from the conventional Perp DEX: delving deep into the infrastructure, aiming to build a trading layer that combines centralized-level matching speed with decentralized settlement capability through a customized Solana validator client architecture.

What's the Background?

According to official disclosures, Bulk raised $8 million in a seed round, led by 6th Man Ventures and Robot Ventures, with other participants including market maker Wintermute, Chapter One, Mirana Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, and angel investors Anatoly Yakovenko (Toly, Solana co-founder) and Delphi Digital's Head of Research Ceteris.

Bulk's two co-founders are quite active in the crypto community:

· Co-founder and CEO Kobie McGlashan: Co-founded the Web3 recruitment and consulting firm BEExperience in February 2022 and served as CEO, VP of Marketing and Development at Orderly Network from April to August 2022, previously worked as a Regional Control Manager at the UK telecom giant Openreach.

· Co-founder and CTO Junaid Peer: Self-proclaimed "orderbook oligarch," serving as a Bulk co-founder. His public information indicates long-term involvement in building order book-related systems, but detailed professional experience is limited in public channels, mainly focused on the Bulk project. He has around 9,300 followers on Platform X, with content revolving around trading infrastructure and Solana ecosystem discussions.

What is the Core Architecture?

The operation of the Solana blockchain relies on numerous "validators". Bulk did not reinvent the wheel but rather built on top of the mainstream Solana validator client Jito-agave's branch Bulk-Agave, equipping validators with a dedicated plugin — Bulk Tile. This plugin can run in parallel with the validator's original work, specifically handling key logic such as order matching and the settlement engine, significantly improving processing efficiency.

Regarding the order propagation logic of the BULK trading platform, simply put, once a user deposits funds on the Solana chain, they can start trading. Orders are imported through the BULK Net propagation layer, where orders are split into 8 small fragments, and any validator only needs to obtain any 6 of them to reconstruct the original order. Then, BULK further uses the UDP protocol to have the core node "receive and forward, only transmit small fragments", resolving packet loss issues in high-frequency trading and greatly increasing propagation speed.

Next is the order matching issue. BULK's order matching does not happen at any time but rather has a fixed rhythm — triggering a "matching cycle (tick)" every 20 milliseconds. All orders are sorted according to a fixed rule calculated based on "public key, random number, matching cycle number", and all nodes produce the same results according to the same rule, without a central authority, no manipulation, eliminating front-running, striving for fairness. What truly determines the order priority is the matching cycle in which the order enters the system.

In addition, Bulk also has a self-trade prevention (STP) feature. For market makers and professional quantitative traders, they often place orders on both the bid and ask simultaneously, easily triggering self-trades inadvertently. This mechanism can effectively protect these professional traders.

Finally, as the entire transaction process reaches its last step, the ultimate confirmation and settlement take place. BULK first provides fast economic confirmation in 25-40 milliseconds, meeting the speed requirements of high-frequency trading, allowing traders to act immediately; then synchronizes the transaction results to Solana for the final on-chain settlement confirmation.

What are the Key Features of Bulk?

The Bulk trading system is built around the central limit order book (CLOB) for each perpetual contract market. All contracts are margined and settled in USDC.

In terms of speed, according to Delphi Digital, Bulk has faster price updates, more real liquidity, and higher cost efficiency. While the Solana ecosystem's standard trading platforms refresh every 400 milliseconds, Bulk asynchronously updates every 20 milliseconds, completely decoupled from block generation; additionally, on other platforms, order placers may cancel orders before execution, creating false liquidity. Bulk requires orders to be valid until the placer actively cancels them, ensuring that the seen liquidity is actually executable; in terms of settlement, Bulk follows a price time priority rule, with orders being executed in the order they arrive.

Bulk representation, with its Gasless ordering on the platform, as well as the use of API and CCXT, simplifies the user experience, eliminating the complexity of the blockchain for traders. In addition, Bulk further reduces transaction costs through batch order processing.

In terms of security, Bulk representation states, "There is no need to entrust assets to the platform for custody, no need for cross-chain or sequencers, no risk of the platform running away or misappropriating funds, and there are also no security vulnerabilities and centralization risks commonly found in cross-chain and Layer 2 solutions."

Furthermore, for validators, while running the BULK transaction logic, they do not give up the MEV revenue generated from the Jito block space auction. They can also benefit from Bulk's order flow, forming a positive ecosystem incentive mechanism.

Summary

Bulk Trade represents another attempt to build a high-performance derivatives trading platform on Solana. By integrating the matching engine into the validator node, the project aims to achieve performance close to that of a centralized exchange while maintaining decentralization.

Currently, Bulk Trade is in the internal testing phase and is about to open the public testnet. As the public testnet approaches, we will continue to observe whether this high-performance trading platform can change the competitive landscape of on-chain derivatives.

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