> 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/overview.md).

# Overview

**What are Perpetual Futures?**

A perpetual future ("perp") is a leveraged contract that tracks the price of an asset; with no expiry date. You post collateral (margin), choose your leverage, and go long (profit when price rises) or short (profit when price falls). The position stays open for as long as your margin covers\
its costs: there is no monthly contract to roll over.

Perps on Avantis are synthetic, you never take delivery of the asset. Profit and loss settle in USDC, the single margin currency across every market.

If you're coming from:

* Traditional futures: same directional exposure, without expiries, rolls, or contract multipliers. Size any amount, hold for minutes or months.
* FX / CFD trading: perps behave like rolling spot CFDs - long or short with leverage while financing accrues -- but pricing, fees and settlement are enforced onchain and you keep custody of your funds. (See: [For CFD Traders](/trading/for-cfd-traders.md))
* Crypto perps: the instrument you already know, extended beyond crypto to forex, commodities, indices and equities -- one terminal, one margin currency.

**Trading Platform: Design Principles**

Our trading platform has been designed with two parties in mind:

**1. Traders**

* Trade perpetuals for crypto, forex and commmodities
* Get up to 250x leverage on cryptocurrencies, and 500x on forex and commodities.
* Trade any asset (equities, commodities, indices, crypto and FX).
* Hold custody of your funds (protocol never controls your funds)
  * We also offer native wallets powered by account abstraction, which combine the best of user safety with the best-in-class DeFi derivatives UX
* Competitive fees on every order, with several incentives for traders who help balance protocol OI (open interest)
* An unparalleled UI / UX experience for all protocol interactions

**2. Liquidity Providers**

* Enable anyone to become a market maker
* Traders bet against the trading pool that LPs deposit into
* LPs get access to organic yield from trading activities (trading fee + trader losses), as opposed to yield based on token emissions or endogenous staking mechanisms

**How Avantis works**

<figure><img src="/files/hEtLs0hl7wsSAPvoQsAg" alt="" width="563"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

1. Deposit USDC — the one collateral for all 100+ markets
2. Pick a market and direction — long or short crypto, forex, commodities, indices, or equities (equities trade 24/5)
3. Set your size — in USDC margin x leverage, or denominated in the asset itself (e.g. 1.5 ETH)
4. Execute at the oracle price — low-latency Pyth feeds, with RWA pricing benchmarked to institutional offchain venues (like IBKR and LMAX).
5. The avUSDC vault takes the other side — you never trade against a thin book, and open interest capacity scales to $100M+ (with capacity for $500M+).&#x20;
6. Manage the position — take-profits and stop-losses, add or remove margin, scale in and out. New orders in the same asset consolidate into your existing position
7. Close — PnL settles to your wallet in USDC

**What is Leverage?**

Leverage lets you control a position bigger than your collateral. With 100 USDC at 10x leverage, you trade as if you had 1,000 USDC.

Profits and losses are calculated on the full position size, not just your collateral. So a 1% price move at 10x changes your collateral by about 10%.

Higher leverage means bigger swings and a liquidation price closer to your entry. It is a sizing tool, not a shortcut to bigger wins. If you are new, start small

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