Buy 0x Token

0x is trading infrastructure. It is the plumbing that lets a wallet, an app or an exchange offer a swap between two crypto assets by finding the best route across dozens of decentralised exchanges and settling the trade in one transaction. ZRX is the token that was created alongside it in 2017 to govern that protocol.

The reason this page is longer than a simple description is that the business and the token have drifted a long way apart. 0x the company is busy, shipping products and signing integrations. ZRX the token governs a protocol whose governance its own support documentation describes as dormant, and whose fee mechanism has been switched off for years. Anyone buying ZRX should understand that distinction before anything else. Our guide to altcoins explains where tokens like ZRX sit relative to Bitcoin, and our guide to decentralised finance covers the wider category 0x operates in.

Where did 0x and ZRX come from?

0x was founded in 2017 by Will Warren and Amir Bandeali. The idea was ahead of its time: rather than every decentralised exchange building its own order matching from scratch, 0x would provide open, shared contracts that anyone could build a trading venue on top of.

The ZRX token sale on 15 August 2017 raised roughly 24 million US dollars. A total supply of one billion tokens was created, half sold in the sale and the rest allocated to the company, the founders, early backers and a developer fund. No mechanism has ever been added that creates more.

Leadership changed in 2026. On 14 May 2026 Will Warren stepped down as co chief executive, saying the two person structure was slowing decisions in a competitive market. Amir Bandeali now leads the company alone. Warren remains a significant shareholder and stayed on the board.

What does 0x actually do in 2026?

The product line is commercial software, sold to businesses.

Swap API. The core product. A developer sends a request and gets back a quote and a ready to sign transaction, routed across many liquidity sources and networks. Wallets and apps use it so their users never see the underlying complexity. Gasless API. Lets a user trade without separately holding the network's gas token, with a relayer covering the transaction and taking payment out of the trade. Cross-Chain API. Swaps between assets on different networks, made generally available on 4 June 2026. Matcha. 0x's own consumer trading interface, and the most visible thing it operates. Settler contracts. The current settlement contracts. They replaced the older Exchange Proxy architecture, which was effectively deprecated during 2024. Analytics and tooling. Dashboards for integrators tracking volume, revenue and errors, plus a command line tool.

The direction of travel in 2025 and 2026 has been outward, not inward. 0x acquired Flood, an early stage routing project, in May 2025. It added support for autonomous software agents paying for its endpoints in June 2026. It opened a Solana beta in August 2026, taking it beyond Ethereum compatible networks for the first time in a serious way.

The part that matters most: how 0x makes money, and where ZRX sits

0x monetises by letting the businesses that integrate it charge a fee on trades and keep a share, and by capturing positive slippage. Integrators pay for and manage access through accounts and keys. None of that flows through ZRX. 0x's own product site describes the company, the APIs and the pricing without mentioning the token at all.

This was not the original design. The protocol once charged a fee, denominated in ETH, which was distributed to market makers and to ZRX holders who staked behind them. That is where the token's utility came from.

Protocol fees are switched off. A ZRX governance vote set the fee multiplier to zero, and the fee has not been charged since. The public staking page still exists and still shows zero ETH collected, no rewards and no next payout date.

Staking is effectively dead. With no fee revenue there is nothing to distribute. 0x's support documentation points people who still have ZRX staked to a community written guide for unstaking and withdrawing rather than to a working product.

Governance is dormant. 0x's own help documentation states plainly that governance is currently dormant and unlikely to become active in the near future, while noting it could resume if circumstances change. The improvement proposal repository has not seen meaningful activity in years.

Community members have raised this. Forum threads in May and November 2025 asked for protocol fees to be reinstated and for staking to be revived. Neither became an approved proposal. As at the time of writing there is no announced tokenomics overhaul, no migration, no buyback, no burn and no revenue share.

That leaves ZRX as a fixed supply governance token for a protocol that is not currently being governed, attached to a business that does not need it. Whether that changes is a decision for 0x and its community, and no timetable for it exists.

Regulatory and security history

In September 2023 the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued an order against ZeroEx, Inc., the company behind 0x. It found that third party tokens offering roughly two to one leveraged exposure to assets such as ether and bitcoin could be traded through Matcha, and that these were leveraged retail commodity transactions that may only be offered on a registered exchange. ZeroEx paid a 200,000 US dollar civil penalty and agreed to a cease and desist. The CFTC's announcement sets out the findings.

On the securities question, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission published a joint interpretation on 17 March 2026 listing certain crypto assets they regard as digital commodities. ZRX was not among those named. That is not a finding against it. It means the asset has not been addressed either way, and its status remains unsettled.

On security, 0x has a real incident in its history. In July 2019 a critical vulnerability was found in the version 2.0 Exchange contract by an external researcher, which would have allowed an attacker to fill orders without the counterparty's consent. 0x shut the contract down and migrated, and no user funds were lost. That is a reasonable outcome, but it is a reminder that contracts handling other people's assets carry real risk.

What are the risks of holding ZRX?

No revenue link. 0x's commercial products do not use ZRX and do not pay anything to holders. Growth in 0x's business does not mechanically create demand for the token. Inactive fee and staking mechanism. The fee that gave ZRX its original purpose is off, and turning it back on requires a governance process that is itself dormant. Dormant governance. A governance token whose governance is not running has little practical function. Restarting it depends on decisions nobody has committed to. Company control. Development, product direction and integrations are decided by a private company, not by token holders. Leadership at that company changed in 2026. Concentration. A substantial share of the original supply went to the company, founders and early backers rather than to the public sale. Competition. Routing and aggregation is a crowded field, with rivals including 1inch, CoW Swap, LiFi, Jupiter on Solana and the routing built directly into large exchanges and wallets. Integrations can be lost as easily as they are won. Regulatory exposure. The company has already settled with a United States regulator over what could be traded through its interface, and ZRX's own regulatory status is unresolved. Smart contract risk. Settlement contracts, bridged tokens and cross chain routing can all fail or be exploited. Liquidity. ZRX trades thinly compared with major assets, which widens spreads and increases the cost of getting out. Volatility. ZRX is not a stablecoin. Its value moves sharply and can fall substantially. No consumer protection. Crypto assets are not covered by the Australian Government's Financial Claims Scheme, and AUSTRAC registration is not an endorsement of any asset listed on an exchange. You should be prepared to lose the money you put in.

Buying ZRX with Australian dollars on CoinJar

CoinJar has operated since 2013 and lists ZRX against Australian dollars, so you can buy, sell and hold it without converting through another cryptocurrency first. Current charges are on our fees page, and live Australian dollar rates are on our cryptocurrency prices page.

CoinJar Australia Pty Ltd is registered with AUSTRAC as a digital currency exchange provider, Registration Number DCE100749118-001.

How is ZRX taxed in Australia?

The ATO generally treats ZRX as a capital gains tax asset. A disposal can occur when you sell it for Australian dollars, trade it for another crypto asset, spend it or give it away.

The ATO sets out its approach in its crypto asset investments guidance. Our guide to crypto tax in Australia provides a practical overview. This is general information, not tax advice. Consider speaking to a qualified tax adviser about your circumstances.