What is WYDE?

WYDE is a platform for causes. It funds a cause from everyday activity, such as trading the cause's coin or spending with its card, and shares those fees with the people who help the cause grow. The name stands for the Wyoming Decentralized Exchange, and it runs on the Base blockchain.

Help a cause grow. It helps you back.

The idea behind it: support usually costs people money, time or posts and returns nothing, so it fades. On WYDE, helping a cause also helps the person doing it, so people keep helping and the cause keeps growing. In WYDE's own words, it replaces the ask with participation.

How it works

1. Everyday activity creates fees. Each trade of a cause coin (the first is $EAT) pays a 1% fee. Spending with the cause's card (the EAT Card) earns card fees that stores already pay.
2. The fees split in public. For $EAT, each trade's 1% fee splits four ways on-chain: hunger relief, the creator pool, liquidity and the platform, 0.25% of the trade each. Anyone can check it on Base. See Tokenomics and fees.
3. The cause gets funded. Half of the hunger-relief share goes to Feed the Children, the national partner; the other half is set aside for hunger-relief groups chosen by community vote. See Ending hunger.
4. The people who help get something back. Clippers are paid for verified views, creators get their videos spread, restaurants get video and new customers, and cardholders get cash back at EAT restaurants. See EAT for creators and restaurants.

The key distinction from traditional fundraising: WYDE is not asking people to give money away. It channels activity that already happens toward the cause.

Cause coins and EAT

WYDE hosts cause-specific tokens called cause coins, each tied to a mission and a cause treasury. The first is $EAT, the token of EAT, WYDE's first ecosystem, focused on hunger and food insecurity. Hunger went first because the problem has clear metrics: you can count meals. No second cause coin has launched yet.

The legal structure: two entities

WYDE is two separate legal entities, structured like AARP: the Wyoming Decentralized Exchange Association (a Wyoming DUNA with 501(c)(4) status that runs the platform and issues $EAT) and the WYDE Foundation (a separate 501(c)(3) public charity that takes tax-deductible gifts). The DUNA framework, a 2024 Wyoming law, gives the Association legal clarity and limited liability. See the two entities on About WYDE and Governance and the DUNA.

The founders

WYDE was co-founded by Martin Simms and Aaron Rafferty.

The big goal

The long-horizon mission is to fund 1 billion meals through hunger relief. That is the destination, not the year-one target. As of 5 November 2026, EAT had funded 74,108 meals. Read how the meals add up in Ending hunger.

Why WYDE is built as a platform

WYDE is a platform, not a single token. It funds a cause from everyday activity, such as trading the cause's coin and spending with its card, and shares those fees with the people who help the cause grow. EAT, for hunger, is the first ecosystem on WYDE, and $EAT is its token. It is the flagship, not the whole story.

"Trade What Matters" remains the line for WYDE's trade box, where cause coins trade.

The problem WYDE solves

Traditional nonprofit funding leans on one-off donation drives: ask, receive, spend, ask again. It is episodic, expensive to run, and reaches mostly people already inclined to give. Support costs people something and returns nothing, so it fades. Meanwhile crypto has deep, daily market activity that funds nothing charitable.

WYDE connects the two. A share of ordinary activity (trading, and card spending) goes to the cause continuously and in public, and another share pays the people who spread it. WYDE replaces the ask with participation: funding is a byproduct of taking part, and taking part pays something back.

What WYDE built for EAT

These are the pieces EAT runs on today. Which of them a new cause can use is agreed with WYDE case by case.

• The Impact Exchange — the on-chain venue and the fee that turns trading into funding: 1% per $EAT trade, split four ways. See How WYDE works.
• The cause coin model — tokenomics designed to align the team, partners and holders on one outcome. See Cause coins.
• A debit card — the EAT Card, a Visa debit card offered in partnership with Crowded, so supporters without crypto can take part by spending.
• Paid creator campaigns — the $1M Clipping Fund pays clippers per verified view to spread the cause. See EAT for creators and restaurants.
• Campaign formats — like the Hunger Cup, turning attention into reach and funding.
• The WYDE Foundation — a 501(c)(3) that accepts tax-deductible donations on behalf of causes and makes grants to grow the charitable causes themselves (the missions, not the token). See The WYDE Foundation↗.
• Legal structure — the Wyoming DUNA with 501(c)(4) status, plus the 501(c)(3) Foundation. See the two entities on About WYDE.

Are you a cause? Start here

If you run a nonprofit and want to understand how to take part, study the flagship in EAT, the first ecosystem on WYDE, then read For Nonprofits. When you are ready, reach out at contact@wyde.org.

The flywheel, in one line

Trading and spending fund causes and pay the people who spread them; impact and pay attract more people; more people drive more volume; more volume funds more impact. See how the pieces fit together.