Dominic Williams points to fully on-chain exchange model after crypto heists

DFINITY founder Dominic Williams has called for a rethink of how the cryptocurrency industry approaches security following a series of major thefts this year, pointing to a new decentralised exchange project built on the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP).

In a post on 2 November, Williams said the scale of crypto heists had raised questions about the balance between technology and the narratives driving the industry.

“The heists this year have been shocking, and the money is taken to bad places to fund bad things,” he wrote, adding that MULTI/DEX could offer an alternative through open-source services operating entirely on the network.

The comments come after several high-profile security incidents in 2026. Among the largest were the reported $387.5 million loss at Bitget, the $318.7 million incident involving the Liquid Network, the $291.3 million KelpDAO exploit and the $285.3 million loss at Drift Protocol.

A separate October incident involving Binance was estimated to have an impact of about $6.3 billion, according to Reuters. Binance said it had worked with partners to freeze affected assets and had located about $3 billion. The figures highlight the scale of the security challenges facing the industry.

Williams is promoting MULTI/DEX as a different approach to decentralised trading. The project is being developed on ICP and is designed to run its exchange infrastructure, including its order book, automated market maker and user interface, entirely on-chain.

According to the project’s website, its code is open source and its trading activity and balances can be independently verified on the network. Williams has described it as an exchange with no owner or backdoors, with a recent development bringing the project closer to production.

The approach aims to reduce reliance on conventional hosting and infrastructure providers by placing the core components of the exchange within the blockchain network itself.

However, running an application fully on-chain does not automatically eliminate security risks. Smart contract vulnerabilities, compromised user credentials, governance weaknesses and other operational failures can still expose digital assets to loss. The effectiveness of the model will depend on how it performs under real-world trading conditions and independent security scrutiny.

For ICP, MULTI/DEX provides an opportunity to demonstrate how blockchain infrastructure can support complete financial applications rather than simply record transactions or transfer tokens.

Williams said the project could help show how open-source services operating entirely on a decentralised network might offer a different direction for the crypto industry.