Bamboo Relay is a decentralized crypto exchange offering margin trading and credit card deposits via Carbon. But in 2025, its low liquidity and lack of updates make it a niche tool for experienced DeFi users-not beginners.
Bamboo Relay: What It Was, Why It Disappeared, and What It Means for Decentralized Exchanges
When you think of decentralized exchanges, you probably think of Uniswap or SushiSwap. But before those names dominated the space, there was Bamboo Relay, a pioneering Ethereum-based decentralized exchange that let users trade tokens directly from their wallets without a middleman. Also known as Bamboo Relay DEX, it was one of the first to combine order books with on-chain settlement — a bold idea at a time when most DEXs relied only on automated market makers. Unlike today’s popular DEXs that use liquidity pools, Bamboo Relay let traders place limit orders just like on Coinbase or Binance, but without giving up control of their funds. It was a bridge between centralized ease and decentralized security.
What made Bamboo Relay stand out was its use of Relay Protocol, a system that allowed off-chain order matching with on-chain settlement, reducing gas costs and speeding up trades. Also known as Bamboo Relay protocol, it was built by the team behind 0x, a foundational protocol for decentralized trading that enabled interoperability between DEXs. This connection meant Bamboo Relay wasn’t just another exchange — it was a testbed for how order books could work on blockchain without sacrificing speed or security.
But here’s the thing: even though Bamboo Relay had the right tech, it didn’t have the right timing. By the time it launched in 2018, gas fees on Ethereum were rising, user experience was clunky, and liquidity was thin. Meanwhile, Uniswap’s simple pool model was exploding in popularity because you didn’t need to find a counterparty — the pool was always there. Bamboo Relay struggled to attract enough traders and market makers to keep its order books full. By 2020, updates stopped. The website went quiet. The team vanished. It became a ghost in the crypto history books.
But its legacy? It’s everywhere. Modern DEXs like dYdX and LooksRare still use off-chain order matching because Bamboo Relay proved it could work. The idea of combining traditional trading features with blockchain’s trustless nature didn’t die — it evolved. Today’s Layer 2 DEXs, like Arbitrum-based exchanges, are basically Bamboo Relay’s dream finally running smoothly — with low fees, fast trades, and real liquidity.
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably seen posts about airdrops, phishing scams, or new DeFi protocols. But behind every new DEX, there’s a story of someone trying — and failing — to make decentralized trading feel natural. Bamboo Relay was one of the first to try. It didn’t survive, but it showed us what was possible. The posts below dig into the winners and losers of crypto’s trading evolution: from dead tokens like BOYS and BUILT, to real tools like Serum DEX and Thruster v3, to scams pretending to be airdrops. They’re all part of the same story — one that Bamboo Relay helped start.