# dYdX vs Gate

> dYdX scores 69.5 (B) to Gate's 56.4 (C) for exchange derivatives. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dydx-vs-gate-io
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dydx-vs-gate-io.md (~4,600 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-03

dYdX scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against Gate's 56.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Gate leads on schema & documentation. Both do exchange derivatives.

- dYdX: grade B, 69.5/100, rank #221 of 1349. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/dydx.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/dydx.json
- Gate: grade C, 56.4/100, rank #786 of 1349. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gate-io.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/gate-io.json
- Best crypto exchange APIs and MCP servers for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/crypto-exchanges/index.md
- All 210 exchanges comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crypto-exchanges/index.md

## Which one, for what

### dYdX (B)

Good for: An agent trading perpetuals from its own Cosmos wallet or through a permissioned key on an owner's account, outside the US, Canada and UK.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 83 against 42
- Security & auth, 78 against 60
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 83 against 77

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: No official MCP server; the one registry entry is a third party's analytics server

### Gate (C)

Good for: An agent trading spot, futures and earn products in a person's Gate account outside the 35 restricted locations, with a keyless MCP for research and an OAuth MCP or scoped key for trading.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 70 against 58

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: No status page, incident history or SLA; the terms give no uptime guarantee and cap liability at three months of fees


## Why the edge

### Reliability: dYdX +41

- dYdX (83): Read with the hosted lines on the indexer API and the chain endpoints the clients submit to. status.dydx.trade is an Atlassian Statuspage with Frontends, dYdX Chain, Indexer, Order Gateway and Client Libraries components and an RSS history (20). From 1 August to 3 November 2026 the feed has eight items, seven scheduled maintenance windows of 29 minutes to 2 hours (indexer on 9 September, 8 and 15 October, protocol v9.7 on 11 September and v9.8.0 on 12 October, WebSocket compression on 26 and 28 October) and one degraded instant-deposit path through an onboarding partner from 24 to 29 September, outside the trading API. Clean or trivial (30). Rate limits documented with numbers for the indexer, the block limits and the public nodes (15). No 429 shape or Retry-After for the indexer; short-term orders expire by `goodTilBlock` and client IDs let an agent find an order after a timeout (8 of 15). No SLA (0). Mainnet generally available; the Order Entry Gateway is marked testnet-only (10). 20 + 30 + 15 + 8 + 0 + 10 = 83.
- Gate (42): Graded with the hosted lines on the API v4 at api.gateio.ws with the hosted MCP beside it. No status page found (status.gate.com does not resolve, the docs link none), so 0 for the page and 5 for no readable history. Rate limits are published per endpoint group with numbers and fill-ratio rules (15). Every response carries X-Gate-RateLimit-Limit, X-Gate-RateLimit-Requests-Remain and X-Gate-RateLimit-Reset-Timestamp, 429 answers with the label TOO_FAST, and spot orders take a user `text` identifier, but no retry or idempotency guidance is written down (12 of 15). No SLA (0). API v4 and the MCP endpoints are production surfaces (10). 42.

### Payments & pricing: dYdX +25

- dYdX (60): No machine payment protocol (0). Fees public per tier without login (20). Testnet with a faucet and no card anywhere (20). No signup; an agent with a funded wallet trades, subject to the geographic terms (20). Total 60.
- Gate (35): No machine payment protocol (0). The fee page's table loads after login; help centre and learn articles give the VIP 0 spot rates (15 of 20). Market data over REST and the public MCP needs no account and no card (20). A person registers, verifies identity and mints the key or approves the grant in a browser (0). 35.

### Security & auth: dYdX +18

- dYdX (78): Orders are signed by the account key or by a permissioned key the owner adds as an authenticator, limited by message type, subaccount and market with AllOf or AnyOf, and revoked by `remove_authenticator`; no shared secret and nothing in a URL (28 of 30). A key can be confined to placing and cancelling orders on one subaccount with withdrawals and transfers excluded, though not to a position or order size, and the interface's default API wallet trades all cross-margin pairs (16 of 20). The API returns no untrusted content (10). Every action is a chain transaction and the indexer lists fills, orders and transfers per subaccount, and authenticators can be listed; no per-key log (10 of 15). A Cantina bug bounty up to $1,000,000 sponsored by dYdX Trading Inc. over the protocol, indexer, web client and SDKs, an Informal Systems audit; no security.txt and no certification (14 of 20). Total 78.
- Gate (60): Gate OAuth 2 for the hosted trading MCP with eight scopes per the protected-resource metadata and revocation on the API management page, and API keys with disabled, read-only or read-write per product group, a separate withdrawal group and an IP allow-list of 20 addresses (30). A read-only key and a GATE_READONLY switch exist, and the guide says fund-moving actions need the person's confirmation in the client, with no server-side cap documented (15 of 20). The news and info servers return third-party content with no guidance on treating it as untrusted (5 of 15). Key changes and OAuth grants are visible on the API management page; no per-call log found (5 of 15). No security.txt, no disclosure policy or bounty on a page we read, a proof-of-reserves repository (5 of 20). 60.

### Schema & documentation: Gate +12

- dYdX (58): No OpenAPI file found for the indexer; the docs publish a types reference of about 200 pages (OrderSide, TimeInForce, OrderStatus and the rest) and the chain's protobuf messages are in the clients (8 of 25). llms.txt and Markdown docs (10). Endpoint pages describe each call and the guides say when to use short-term against long-term orders and the indexer against the node, but descriptions are short (12 of 20). Enums and types on every field in the reference, with pagination and cursor parameters typed (11 of 15). Examples in Python, TypeScript and Rust for each step; errors are described by HTTP status (400 malformed, 404 not found) with no code list (9 of 15). A /v4 path, protocol releases dated on the status page, deprecated rate-limit fields marked, but no API changelog (8 of 15). Total 58.
- Gate (70): No public OpenAPI file was found, though the SDKs are generated and the MCP tools carry typed parameters per the tool reference; the hosted tools' JSON Schema could not be read without a session (12 of 25). The whole REST and WebSocket documentation is downloadable as Markdown and the agent guide is a plain page (10). The tool reference gives one line and the main parameters per tool, the API reference a description per endpoint, no when-not-to-use guidance (12 of 20). Required flags, enums for side, type and time_in_force (11 of 15). Examples per endpoint and a labelled error body with a fixed label list the docs tell you to branch on instead of messages (13 of 15). A versioned changelog, v4.106.177 on 2 November 2026 (12 of 15, since entries are terse). 70.

### Maintenance & community: dYdX +6

- dYdX (83): Read on the clients and the chain. v4-clients was pushed on 29 October 2026 and protocol v9.8.0 shipped on 12 October (30). Protocol v9.7 on 11 September, v9.8.0 on 12 October, v4-client-js tags 3.5.0 and 3.6.0, three or more in 90 days (20). A Discord, a help centre and 36 open issues on v4-clients whose replies couldn't be read (12 of 25). Official SDKs current, the TypeScript client at 3.6.0 and the Python client at 1.1.6 from February 2026 (12 of 15). CI workflows for lint, test, publish and audit, with trusted publishing and provenance on npm (9 of 10). Total 83.
- Gate (77): Read as a hosted service with open-source MCP packages. The API changelog's latest entry is 2 November 2026 and gate-skills was pushed 3 November (30). 40 dated changelog entries since 5 August 2026 (20). developer@gate.com, a help centre and issue trackers on gate-mcp and gate-skills, replies not checked (12 of 25). In the official MCP registry under io.github.gateio-dev, a GitHub namespace rather than gate.com, and official SDKs current (10 of 15). The local package has a publish workflow and no test workflow in CI, and its last tag is 16 April 2026 (5 of 10). 77.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | dYdX | Gate | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 83 | 42 | dYdX +41 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 58 | 70 | Gate +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 66 | even |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 78 | 60 | dYdX +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 35 | dYdX +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 77 | dYdX +6 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 50 | 49 | dYdX +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **69.5 · B** | **56.4 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | dYdX | Gate |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | dYdX Trading Inc. | Gate |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.gatemcp.ai/mcp` |
| Transports |  | Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | The clients are AGPL-3.0 with a use condition tied to the v4 Terms of Use; the chain software (dydxprotocol/v4-chain) carries a custom licence GitHub cannot classify. The hosted indexer at indexer.dydx.trade and the front end are run by third parties, not dYdX Trading Inc. | none |
| Tools exposed | 0 | 58 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.gateio-dev/gate-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-02 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-03-12 | 2026-07-22 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-06-06 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 119 stars, 86k npm/wk | 44 stars |

## Verdicts

**dYdX.** dYdX gives an agent keyless indexer reads, permissioned keys limited by message type, subaccount and market, a Statuspage with a clean 90 days, published fees and a testnet with a faucet. There is no official MCP server or OpenAPI file, orders are chain transactions signed by the clients, and no one entity operates the hosted endpoints.

**Gate.** Gate runs official hosted MCP servers with keyless market data and OAuth-scoped trading, a local stdio server with a read-only switch, per-endpoint rate limits with headers and a futures testnet. There is no status page, SLA or OpenAPI file, the fee table needs a login, the MCP host is a separate domain, and the terms name no company.

## Before you call either

### dYdX

1. Ask the account owner for an authenticator limited to `/dydxprotocol.clob.MsgPlaceOrder` and `MsgCancelOrder` on one subaccount, and keep its private key out of prompts
2. Set a unique 32-bit `clientId` on every order and look it up on `/v4/orders` after a timeout; short-term orders expire with `goodTilBlock` (at most 20 blocks ahead)
3. Stay under 2 stateful orders a block and 20 per 100 blocks; failed placements count, so use short-term orders for active trading
4. Enable permessage-deflate on the indexer WebSocket; since 26 October 2026 connections without compression may be refused with 426
5. Check `/v4/geo` and the compliance screen before trading for a person, since the terms exclude the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom

### Gate

1. Start on https://api.gatemcp.ai/mcp for prices and order books with no credential; switch to /mcp/exchange only when the person has approved the OAuth grant with the narrowest scopes
2. For a key-based route, create a key on a dedicated sub-account with read-only on every group but the one the task needs, withdrawal disabled and an IP allow-list; changes take up to 5 minutes
3. Put a unique `text` value starting with t- on every spot order and reuse it on the retry; read the order back before placing again
4. Read X-Gate-RateLimit-Requests-Remain and stop at zero; spot order placement is capped at 10 a second and withdrawals at 1 per 3 seconds
5. Rehearse futures logic on api-testnet.gateapi.io with TestNet keys; there is no spot testnet

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, dYdX or Gate?

dYdX scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against Gate's 56.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Gate leads on schema & documentation.

### Do dYdX and Gate need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call dYdX and Gate without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for dYdX. Gate has a hosted endpoint at https://api.gatemcp.ai/mcp.

### Are dYdX and Gate open source?

dYdX is open source (The clients are AGPL-3.0 with a use condition tied to the v4 Terms of Use; the chain software (dydxprotocol/v4-chain) carries a custom licence GitHub cannot classify. The hosted indexer at indexer.dydx.trade and the front end are run by third parties, not dYdX Trading Inc.). No open-source release is listed for Gate.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dydx-vs-gate-io.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dydx-vs-gate-io.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "dydx", "b": "gate-io"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare dydx gate-io`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/dydx.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/gate-io.json

## Other comparisons with dYdX or Gate

- [Bitfinex API vs dYdX](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bitfinex-vs-dydx.md)
- [Bitfinex API vs Gate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bitfinex-vs-gate-io.md)
- [Bitget vs dYdX](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bitget-vs-dydx.md)
- [Bitget vs Gate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bitget-vs-gate-io.md)
- [Bithumb Open API vs dYdX](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bithumb-vs-dydx.md)
- [Bithumb Open API vs Gate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bithumb-vs-gate-io.md)
- [Bitstamp API vs dYdX](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bitstamp-vs-dydx.md)
- [Bitstamp API vs Gate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bitstamp-vs-gate-io.md)
- [Bybit vs dYdX](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bybit-vs-dydx.md)
- [Bybit vs Gate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bybit-vs-gate-io.md)
- [Crypto.com Exchange API vs dYdX](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crypto-com-exchange-vs-dydx.md)
- [Crypto.com Exchange API vs Gate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crypto-com-exchange-vs-gate-io.md)
- [dYdX vs Uniswap Trading API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dydx-vs-uniswap.md)
- [dYdX vs Upbit Open API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dydx-vs-upbit.md)
- [Gate vs Gemini Exchange API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gate-io-vs-gemini-exchange.md)
- [Gate vs HTX trading API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gate-io-vs-htx.md)
- [Gate vs Hyperliquid](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gate-io-vs-hyperliquid.md)
- [Gate vs Kraken API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gate-io-vs-kraken.md)
- [Gate vs KuCoin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gate-io-vs-kucoin.md)
- [Gate vs MEXC API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gate-io-vs-mexc.md)
- [Gate vs OKX API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gate-io-vs-okx.md)
- [Gate vs Uniswap Trading API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gate-io-vs-uniswap.md)
- [Gate vs Upbit Open API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gate-io-vs-upbit.md)
- [Binance API vs Gate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/binance-vs-gate-io.md)
- [Coinbase Advanced Trade API vs Gate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coinbase-advanced-trade-vs-gate-io.md)
- [Coinbase MCP server (Coinbase for Agents) vs Gate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coinbase-mcp-vs-gate-io.md)
- [Binance API vs dYdX](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/binance-vs-dydx.md)
- [Coinbase Advanced Trade API vs dYdX](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coinbase-advanced-trade-vs-dydx.md)
- [Deribit vs dYdX](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deribit-vs-dydx.md)
- [Deribit vs Gate](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deribit-vs-gate-io.md)
- [dYdX vs Gemini Exchange API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dydx-vs-gemini-exchange.md)
- [dYdX vs HTX trading API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dydx-vs-htx.md)
- [dYdX vs Hyperliquid](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dydx-vs-hyperliquid.md)
- [dYdX vs Kraken API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dydx-vs-kraken.md)
- [dYdX vs KuCoin](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dydx-vs-kucoin.md)
- [dYdX vs MEXC API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dydx-vs-mexc.md)
- [dYdX vs OKX API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dydx-vs-okx.md)
- [Coinbase MCP server (Coinbase for Agents) vs dYdX](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coinbase-mcp-vs-dydx.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp