Decentralized derivatives have steadily evolved beyond simple spot trading, and Avantis represents one of the more ambitious steps in that direction. Built as a fully on-chain perpetual trading platform, Avantis blends leveraged trading, liquidity provisioning, and risk management into a single ecosystem. The result is a protocol designed to give traders and liquidity providers access to multiple markets while keeping costs and execution risks in check.
What Makes Avantis Different
Avantis is a decentralized exchange focused on perpetual futures, deployed on Base, a Layer 2 network built for scalability and low transaction costs. The platform supports leveraged long and short positions across crypto assets as well as real-world assets such as forex pairs, commodities, and equity indices. Rather than fragmenting liquidity or relying on off-chain components, Avantis keeps trading, collateral, and settlement fully on-chain.
Traders interact with perpetual contracts that have no expiration date, allowing positions to remain open indefinitely as long as sufficient collateral is maintained. Liquidity providers, on the other hand, supply USDC into protocol-managed vaults that act as the counterparty to traders. This structure connects trading activity directly to liquidity provisioning, aligning incentives across the system.
How Liquidity and Vaults Power the Protocol
At the core of Avantis is a USDC-based vault system. Traders deposit USDC as margin to open leveraged positions, while liquidity providers contribute USDC that backs these trades. Returns for liquidity providers are generated from trading activity, including fees and trader losses.
To accommodate different risk preferences, Avantis separates liquidity into structured tranches. Senior tranches are designed to prioritize capital preservation and offer more predictable, lower returns. Junior tranches take on greater exposure to trader performance, which introduces higher risk but also the potential for increased rewards. This design allows participants to choose an approach that matches their own tolerance for volatility.
On-Chain Execution and Keeper Fees
Because Avantis operates entirely on-chain, every trade requires a blockchain transaction. To ensure reliable execution, the protocol relies on a decentralized network of keeper bots that submit and manage orders. Traders pay a keeper fee when opening or closing positions, which compensates these operators for their work.
Unlike static fee models, Avantis calculates keeper fees dynamically. The cost adjusts in real time based on network conditions such as gas prices. This helps prevent overpaying during quieter periods while still ensuring transactions are processed promptly when the network is busy.
Dual-Oracle Pricing for Market Accuracy
Rather than maintaining its own order book, Avantis depends on external price feeds to determine fair market prices. It integrates Pyth Network for fast, low-latency data and Chainlink as a decentralized fallback. Pyth provides near real-time updates, enabling responsive trade execution, while Chainlink adds redundancy and reliability.
Before any trade is finalized, Avantis compares prices from both oracles. If the discrepancy exceeds a predefined threshold, the transaction is canceled. This safeguard helps protect traders from abnormal pricing during periods of high volatility or oracle disruption.
Trading Features Designed Around Efficiency
One of Avantis’ standout ideas is its approach to trading fees. With zero-fee perpetuals, traders do not pay upfront costs to open or close positions. Fees are only taken when a trade is profitable, and even then, only a portion of the gains is collected. If a position moves against the trader, losses are purely market-driven, without additional protocol charges. This structure can be particularly attractive for short-term or high-leverage strategies where traditional fees quickly add up.
Avantis also introduces loss rebates, a mechanism that encourages balance between long and short positions. Traders who take the less crowded side of the market may receive rebates if their trade is unsuccessful, partially offsetting losses. This system helps stabilize the platform, reduces directional imbalances, and indirectly lowers risk for liquidity providers.
Revenue Flow and Protocol Sustainability
Fees generated on Avantis are distributed between liquidity providers and the protocol treasury. The majority is allocated to liquidity providers as compensation for supplying capital and absorbing trading risk. The remaining portion flows into the treasury, which funds incentives, competitions, insurance mechanisms, and long-term development. This split is designed to reward active participants while ensuring the protocol has resources to grow and adapt over time.
Understanding the Risks
Despite its design, Avantis is not risk-free. Liquidity providers face exposure to skilled traders who may consistently profit, reducing vault returns. Smart contract vulnerabilities, while mitigated through audits, remain a consideration. Traders, especially those using high leverage, must account for amplified losses and rapid liquidation risks.
For real-world assets like forex and commodities, additional factors come into play. These markets can experience price gaps when traditional markets reopen, which may cause orders to execute at less favorable levels than expected.
The Role of the AVNT Token
AVNT is the native token of the Avantis ecosystem, with a capped supply of one billion tokens. It serves as the backbone of governance and incentives across the platform. Holders can vote on protocol upgrades, parameter changes, and future expansions. Staking AVNT can unlock fee discounts for traders and enhanced participation in loyalty programs and airdrops.
AVNT also plays a role in protocol security. Tokens can be staked in the Avantis Security Module, which helps protect liquidity providers during shortfall events. In return for rewards and discounts, stakers accept the possibility of slashing, aligning long-term interests with system stability.
Avantis on Binance HODLer Airdrops
In September 2025, Binance announced AVNT as the 40th project featured in its HODLer Airdrops program. Users who committed BNB to eligible earning products during the snapshot period received AVNT distributions. Ten million tokens, representing one percent of the total supply, were allocated, and AVNT launched with a Seed Tag across several trading pairs.
Final Thoughts
Avantis brings together perpetual futures, structured liquidity, and on-chain risk management in a single protocol. By combining features such as zero-fee perpetuals, dual-oracle pricing, and tranche-based vaults, it aims to make leveraged trading more efficient for traders while offering flexible opportunities for liquidity providers.
That said, leverage and on-chain derivatives remain inherently risky. Anyone considering Avantis should take the time to understand how the system works and carefully evaluate whether the risks align with their financial goals and experience.
