Aquarius is upgrading its SDEX rewards engine from v1 to v2 following successful nine-day tests on seven Stellar markets. The v2 engine uses a more sophisticated formula considering offer size, duration, spread proximity, and fulfillment to better reward genuine liquidity providers. Testing showed reduced rewards for wash traders, more users receiving rewards, and significantly increased market liquidity.
A community idea prompted Aquarius to test an improved SDEX rewards engine v2 against the original v1 on markets like XLM/AQUA, BTC/USDC, and others starting February 11th, 2022. v2 rewards market makers based on offer size, time in order book, closeness to spread, and fulfillment percentage, unlike v1's volume-focused approach, and eliminates the 12-ledger minimum. Tests revealed 70-80% reward cuts for wash traders exploiting v1, a jump from 4,149 to 11,638 reward payments, and liquidity boosts like BTC/USDC order book value rising from $30K to $125K. The upgrade to v2 is set for March 4th, 2022, deprecating v1 while keeping reward allocations unchanged. Community feedback on Discord was positive, highlighting fairer distribution for liquidity contributors.
