> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.avantisfi.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.avantisfi.com/trading/limitations-and-safeguards.md).

# Limitations & Safeguards

**Limits & Safeguards**

Avantis is built so one trader's upside never becomes someone else's bad debt. The vault takes the other side of every trade, so a small set of limits keeps its risk measured, and a set of safeguards keeps yours. Everything here is visible in the app before you trade.

**Market capacity**

* Every market has a cap on open interest, tracked separately for longs and shorts. Total capacity scales with the size of the vault.
* Each market shows its available liquidity in the app: how much new position size it can absorb right now.
* When a side of a market is at capacity, new positions on that side wait until room frees up, from closes on that side or new liquidity

**Position limits**

* Each market sets its own minimum and maximum leverage, shown on the trade panel
* Leverage limits can be tightened temporarily around exceptional event risk, such as major economic releases or thin holiday markets
* There is a cap on how many positions you can hold per market, and a minimum size per position. Both are shown in the app

**Profit cap**

A single position's profit is capped at 2500% of collateral for most markets. Take profit levels snap within this bound. It is the trade-off that lets the vault quote deep liquidity on every market at once: your maximum payout is known the moment you open. 

**Safeguards for traders**

* You can never lose more than your collateral. Positions liquidate at 85% loss, before a loss can outgrow what you posted. There are no margin calls and no negative balances
* No fill without a fresh, validated oracle price. If price verification fails, nothing executes, and you can simply retry
* Market orders that cannot execute within about 30 seconds expire instead of filling at a stale or distorted price. Expired orders cost nothing
* Spread scales with order size, so a whale-sized order cannot drain the vault backing everyone else's wins. Large trades split via TWAP pay less. See [Spread and Execution Price](/trading/execution-and-pricing/slippage-and-execution.md)