Cube Exchange

Cube Exchange is a hybrid crypto exchange. Trades match on a fast order book, as on a normal exchange. But your coins stay in a shared-key vault that Cube can't move on its own. Bartosz Lipiński and Larry Wu founded it in 2023. Both came from trading firms, and Wu also worked at Solana Labs. In November 2026 its website lists more than 1,420 tokens, including BTC, ETH and SOL.

Cube is closely tied to Solana. The group that co-signs its settlements launched with the Solana Foundation and Solana validators. But 2026 has been quiet. A plan to list Cube on the stock market fell apart in April, and the company has posted little since June.

How Cube Exchange works: MPC vaults, Guardians and CubeNet settlement

Every Cube account is a vault built with multi-party computation (MPC). The private key is never in one place. It is split into three shares. You hold one, Cube holds one, and an outside group called the Guardians holds one. Any two shares can sign a transfer.

Think of a safe that needs two of three keys. Cube can't open it alone. If Cube disappears, you and a Guardian can still open it together. Cube's litepaper says you get your share as a PDF, so keeping it safe is your job.

Trading happens off-chain. Cube's matching engine runs in Tokyo, Stockholm and Pittsburgh, and Cube says a match takes about 200 microseconds. Your balance changes the moment an order fills. The results then go to CubeNet, Cube's settlement layer. CubeNet adds up what each vault owes and is owed, and the net transfers are signed and sent on-chain. The FAQ says this can take up to 24 hours.

If CubeNet stalls for 48 hours, the litepaper says the Guardians "may independently support the user in transferring funds out of their MPC Vault."

Who are the Cube Guardians?

The Guardians are outside firms that check Cube's settlement sums and refuse to sign bad withdrawals. Cube launched its Guardian Council in March 2024. The first members were the Solana Foundation and the validator firms Everstake, Triton One, Juicy Stake and Kiln.

The litepaper says Guardians share 5% of net trading fees, with a monthly minimum. Cube's security page does not name today's Guardians. So you can't easily check who holds the third key share now.

Cube Exchange fees: maker, taker and withdrawal costs

Cube charges 0.14% on maker orders and 0.24% on taker orders, per its fee schedule. It lists no volume discounts. A maker order waits on the book. A taker order fills right away against one that is waiting.

The homepage promises "no hidden spreads". That means you pay the order book price with no markup on top. Deposits cost only the network fee. Withdrawal fees are waived during Cube's "early access period", which was still running in November 2026. Cube says that may change after launch.

Cube Exchange sign up, KYC and how to withdraw

You can open a Cube account without ID, but you can't trade without it. The homepage says no ID check is needed "to get started, deposit, or withdraw". The FAQ adds that "to place an order on Cube, you first must complete KYC verification". Buying crypto with cash through Cube's payment partner needs a higher tier, Level 2. Plan on proving who you are before your first trade.

Signing up creates your vault and hands you your key share as a PDF. To withdraw, the litepaper says you log in, pick the coin and the address, and submit the order. CubeNet checks it and settles it on-chain.

If you lose your key share, the litepaper says Cube can issue a new one after extra ID checks. If it was stolen, Cube tells the Guardians to block the old vault, makes a new one and moves your funds into it.

Cube Exchange app features: pro trading, swaps, bundles and the AI trading bot

One Cube account works on the web and in apps for iPhone and Android. The main tools are:

• Pro trading, with charts, depth views and advanced order types.
• Swap, a simple buy and sell screen with no order book.
• Bundles, which buy a basket of tokens in one click.
• Recurring buy, for buying a set amount on a schedule.
• Algos, for automating your own trade rules.
• Staking and block rewards, listed on the homepage with few details.
• APIs over REST, WebSocket, FIX and UDP, for bots and market makers.

The newest product is AI Fund, a trading bot that runs inside Anthropic's Claude Code. Its GitHub page now lists 45 agents. Twenty-one are named after famous traders such as Jim Simons and Jesse Livermore, and 24 cover jobs like market making and risk checks. Cube's own pages still give older, smaller counts.

The bot paper trades by default. Live trading has to be switched on. It has built-in links to Cube, OKX, Kraken, Binance, Coinbase and Alpaca, and reaches about 110 more venues through the CCXT code library. It is a tool for coders, not a managed fund. Cube's page shows a demo and one order-execution case study, not an audited track record.

Is Cube Exchange safe and legit? Audits, custody and risks

Cube is a real, venture-backed company, and its custody design is its best safety feature. Cube can't move your funds alone. If the company failed, the Guardian backstop is meant to let you withdraw. A normal custodial exchange holds your keys outright.

The design has limits, though. The only public audit we found is a Hacken penetration test of Cube's web app and API from January 2025. Its scope is the web app and API. It did not cover the key-sharing system, the Guardian software or CubeNet. Cube's security page says it pays up to $10,000 per bug through a bug bounty.

Other risks to weigh:

• The 48-hour Guardian backstop has never been used in a real failure. It needs your key share and Guardians who are no longer named.
• Your balance updates at once, but on-chain settlement can take a day or more. Until then you rely on Cube's records.
• Trading has thinned out. In July 2026 the trading-bot project Hummingbot removed its Cube connector. The pull request gives the reason as "no longer used / negligible trading volume on major pairs." Thin order books mean more slippage on big orders.
• Cube's risk disclosure bars users in unnamed "Restricted Jurisdictions". It also says Cube may stop serving a region if rules get too costly.
• Signs of life are thin. The @cubexch X account posted nothing in the 30 days to 3 November 2026, per our check. The newest blog post is dated 17 June 2026. The latest code update on Cube's GitHub was on 6 July 2026.

No hack or loss of user funds has been reported. Cube says it publishes reserve proofs "on a recurring cadence", but not how often.

Who should use Cube Exchange: self-custody traders and API developers

Cube Exchange suits traders who want an order book for BTC, ETH, SOL and other big coins without handing their coins to an exchange. You must be able to store a key share safely. It also suits coders who want a fast API or want to test the AI Fund agents.

It is a poor fit if you trade large sizes and need deep liquidity. It is also a poor fit if you want a long track record or a fully licensed exchange. Given how quiet Cube has been since April, keep only the funds you are actively trading there.

Cube Exchange vs Backpack and other Solana trading venues

Pick Cube if you care most about not handing your keys to an exchange. Pick Backpack if you want a busier, conventional exchange. Both are Solana-linked exchanges that started after FTX failed. Backpack holds your funds the way a normal exchange does. Cube keeps your funds in a shared-key vault, but its markets are thinner.

On-chain venues take the exchange out of custody fully. Phoenix runs an order book that lives on Solana itself. Jupiter finds the best swap price across Solana apps, from your own wallet. Each trade settles at once, with no wait for a settlement layer. The catch is that you can only trade Solana tokens. You also swap exchange risk for wallet and code risk.

Cube Exchange SPAC and acquisition by Mercer Park: what happened

Cube's plan to go public through a SPAC failed in April 2026. A SPAC is a listed shell company that buys a private firm to take it public. In October 2025, Cube Group agreed to merge with Mercer Park Opportunities Corp., a SPAC on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The deal valued Cube at $300 million.

The merged firm was also meant to buy a large SOL treasury with its own shares. Mercer Park put that at $500 million.

In April 2026, Mercer Park said it had served notice to end the deal. It gave Cube a short deadline to "cure certain matters" that it did not name, and said it did not expect a fix. It then began looking for other deals. Holders redeemed about 19.8 million of its Class A shares. Neither the listing nor the SOL treasury happened.

Cube Exchange team, funding and history

Cube is run by CEO Bartosz Lipiński and CTO Larry Wu, per its about page. Lipiński built trading systems at Citadel, JP Morgan and BNP Paribas. Wu worked at the trading firm DRW and at Solana Labs.

Cube says it has raised $22 million. In February 2024, The Block reported a $12 million Series A led by 6th Man Ventures. Backers named on Cube's about page include GSR, Flowdesk, Susquehanna, Solana Ventures, Foundation Capital and Anagram.

Key dates:

• 2023: Cube opened early access in November. Lipiński presented it at Breakpoint 2023 and on the Lightspeed podcast.
• 2024: The Series A closed in February and the Guardian Council launched in March. At Breakpoint 2024, Lipiński showed plans for a cross-chain intent network.
• 2025: Hacken tested the web app and API in January. The Mercer Park deal was signed in October.
• 2026: In March, Infobae reported on an unsigned draft letter from Cube Exchange Australia Pty Ltd to Argentina's president. Dated August 2024, it proposed a credit cooperative in Argentina and is now evidence in the federal $LIBRA probe. The report did not accuse Cube of wrongdoing. The SPAC deal ended in April, the AI Fund code was public on GitHub by April, and Hummingbot dropped Cube in July.