How o1.exchange built a full-featured trading terminal on Base and Solana with Turnkey

Learn how this VC-backed onchain exchange used Turnkey to launch non-custodial embedded wallets that streamline end-to-end user flows and drive continuous adoption.

• 385K+ user wallets created
• 95% reduction in onboarding times
• 3 days to full integration

“Turnkey delivered ultra-optimized wallet infrastructure that would have taken months and millions of dollars to build ourselves. Now, our team can focus less on foundational maintenance and more on product innovation.” — Jerry Pan, Co-Founder and CEO at o1.exchange

About

o1.exchange is the Onchain Everything Exchange, where you can build advanced strategies over any assets, spot/perp/prediction market. Established in 2025, the company has raised $4.2 million in seed funding led by Coinbase Ventures and AllianceDAO, and has risen to over 385K registered users.

Challenge

Launching a comprehensive trading terminal with a lean in-house team

When founders Jerry Pan and Ethan Chang conceptualized o1.exchange in 2025, their shared vision was to create the first trading terminal to unify spot, perps, and prediction markets on Base and Solana. 

Over the years, they’d seen firsthand how traders on these chains would either navigate fragmented onchain DEX interfaces or migrate to centralized exchanges in pursuit of deeper liquidity and more advanced tooling, abandoning self-custody in the process. As the gap between fragmented DeFi tools and professional-grade trading experiences on these chains continued to widen, demand for a unified, non-custodial trading terminal grew. But capitalizing on this demand with a lean in-house team would be a considerable undertaking.

At the time, o1.exchange was operating with a small team, focused mainly on smart contracts for order books, perp settlement, and prediction-market logic. With all their engineering resources focused on establishing these foundational primitives, standing up wallet infrastructure in tandem became operationally unfeasible.

While waiting to build internally offered theoretical control, it would also introduce legal exposure, licensing overhead, and long-term maintenance demands. “We knew taking on the building process would both carry legal risk and require months of internal development,” Jerry shares. “In a space that moves extremely quickly, that trade-off was a non-starter.”

Jerry and Ethan knew that any early architectural decisions would have a lasting impact, affecting not only time-to-market but also how the platform would scale responsibly over time. They were looking for a proven provider that would own end-to-end wallet infrastructure and streamline user flows from day one.

They vetted several providers, many of which couldn’t match their performance or flexibility requirements, but fortunately Turnkey’s secure, performant, and non-custodial wallet infrastructure aligned directly with the vision Jerry and Ethan had set out to build.

“When you’re building a platform to manage real value onchain, infrastructure decisions stop being abstract. You have to get them right early, especially if you want to scale without re-architecting everything.”

Solution

Solidifying foundational wallet infrastructure with Turnkey

o1.exchange partnered with Turnkey to establish a robust wallet and authentication layer from day one.

Integration began immediately, supported by clear documentation and responsive support. “The Turnkey team was responsive, and their documentation was phenomenal,” Jerry shares. “Having those resources at the ready meant we were able to fully onboard in only 3 days.”

Following integration, Turnkey became the foundational infrastructure that powers all core user flows on o1.exchange, from embedded, non-custodial wallet creation to transaction signing.

Users without existing 3rd-party wallets can onboard in seconds through familiar login methods (such as email and social), while veteran traders benefit from seamless transaction flows that eliminate fatigue through session-based signing. Meanwhile, Turnkey’s secure enclaves ensure key generation, storage, and signing operations remain protected.

Turnkey’s influence extends beyond foundational user flows. Webhooks ensure o1.exchange’s team receives real-time order updates and trade confirmations, while also monitoring risk associated with unusual trading activity. “One of the biggest hurdles in this space is establishing trust with users,” Jerry shares. “Turnkey equipped us with the visibility and security needed to deliver on this expectation.”

By offloading wallet infrastructure to Turnkey, o1.exchange eliminated the need to divert significant resources to an in-house build that would also require ongoing internal maintenance and operational oversight. Today, the team reallocates that bandwidth toward product development and user growth.

“Users can sign up and start using the platform in seconds, and we’re not spending time rethinking wallet decisions as we build. That lets us stay focused on the trading experience instead of infrastructure overhead.”

Results

Accelerated time-to-market, seamless user flows, and infrastructure built for scale

With Turnkey, Jerry and Ethan successfully launched their full-featured trading terminal on Base and Solana without diverting resources to internal wallet development. o1.exchange now operates on a scalable wallet and authentication layer that supports seamless transaction signing, session management, and user onboarding that remains performant as activity increases.

• 385K+ user wallets created
• 95% reduction in onboarding times
• 3 days to full integration

With wallet infrastructure on autopilot, Jerry and Ethan plan to expand o1.exchange’s feature set, focusing wholly on trading functionality rather than foundational rewrites.

“Turnkey just works. Choosing them as our day-one wallet infrastructure not only accelerated our time-to-market, but also ensured our user flows are seamless and secure.” 

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