A lot of people come across Rails (@rails_xyz) and are totally confused:

“Isn’t this just another DEX? Why are big institutions suddenly raving about it?”
Let me tell you, this is not your average DEX. This thing is—an unusual hybrid beast in the on-chain space: performance monster, structure monster, transparency monster. It’s so unique you just have to study it.

Rails is a newly-emerged hybrid perpetual contract DEX (Perps DEX), backed by institutions like Slow, CMCC Global, and Kraken.
But what matters is not who invested, but what “old problems” it actually solved.

Let’s look at traditional DEXs first:
Uniswap, PancakeSwap and others use AMM, are fully on-chain, very robust, and highly decentralized—
But the issues are: expensive, slow, high slippage, poor user experience, opening a position feels like mining on-chain.
Fully on-chain execution == every click tires out your wallet.

Now look at Hyperliquid and GMX:
HL is fast, but its custody transparency can’t match Rails;
GMX supports Perps, but its execution speed still lags behind Rails.
It’s always either not fast enough, not transparent enough, or the user experience isn’t up to par.

But Rails steps right in:
It’s got a “hybrid model”:
Off-chain quoting and matching + on-chain settlement and control,
You get CeFi speed, but your funds remain as safe as DeFi.
To put it simply:
Off-chain tasks stay off-chain, on-chain tasks stay on-chain, grabbing the best of both worlds.

The result:
On-chain execution slow? Rails says, I’ll run it off-chain for you first.
Funds not safe? Rails says, I don’t touch your money.
Bad user experience? Rails says, one click and it’s done—just as smooth as a CEX.

Black box? Rails says, transparent, open-source, all mechanisms laid out for you.
This leads to one fact:
Rails addresses every pain point of old DEXs.
The old model is like coding on a Nokia; Rails hands you an iPhone Pro Max.

Next, you’re going to talk about Rails’ advantages? I’m even more interested to see that.
But let me throw out an even tougher question:

If Rails can truly achieve “CeFi speed + DeFi security”, how many DEXs in the future will still want to stick to being fully on-chain?
Or... will everyone eventually be forced to go hybrid?