what is avantis, the perp venue behind uponly.win

You have probably seen the name Avantis pop up in the same sentence as uponly.win, and unless you are deep in the on-chain perps world, you might not know what it is. Avantis is one of the more interesting perpetual trading protocols on Base, and it is the venue that uponly.win routes every trade to. This is the no-bs explainer of what Avantis is, how it works, and why we built our arcade on top of it.

the simple definition

Avantis is a decentralized perpetual futures protocol on Base. It supports leverage trading on crypto, forex, and commodities markets using a hybrid liquidity model where stable LPs provide most of the capital and dynamic LPs absorb directional risk. It is non-custodial, settles on-chain, and offers leverage of up to several hundred x on major pairs.

Think of it as a perp dex optimized for capital efficiency and multi-asset coverage, built specifically for Base.

how it actually works

Avantis uses a synthetic-perp model that is different from both order-book exchanges and the GMX-style multi-asset pool. The structure has three layers.

1. Traders post USDC as collateral and open long or short positions on a wide range of pairs.
2. Trade prices are sourced from on-chain oracles (Pyth and Chainlink), so execution price is the oracle price at the moment of trade.
3. When traders profit, they are paid from the liquidity vault. When traders lose, the loss flows to the vault. LPs are the counterparty to trader p&l in aggregate.
4. The vault has two tranches: a senior stable tranche (lower yield, lower risk) and a junior dynamic tranche (higher yield, absorbs directional risk first).
5. Funding rates, borrow fees, and dynamic skew incentives keep the vault's exposure balanced and incentivize traders to take the underbalanced side.

why the tranched LP model is interesting

Most perp dex LP models force passive LPs to take whatever directional risk traders happen to want. If traders are heavily long, the LP is effectively short. This works but is inefficient — risk-averse LPs (the majority of capital) are forced to bear risk they did not opt into.

Avantis splits the LP pool into a stable tranche (which only takes the smooth, low-variance share of risk) and a dynamic tranche (which absorbs the spikes). This lets more conservative capital provide liquidity without taking on tail risk, which deepens the pool overall. It is closer to how traditional structured finance handles trading risk.

why it matters for traders

For an actual user clicking trade, the LP tranching is invisible. What you experience is the consequence: deeper liquidity, tighter spreads, and the ability to run higher leverage on more pairs.

• Up to 500x leverage on majors like ETH and BTC. Higher leverage than most CEX perps allow.
• A wide range of pairs: crypto, forex (EUR, GBP, JPY), commodities (gold, oil). Avantis has one of the broader pair selections in on-chain perps.
• Oracle-priced execution. You always get the oracle price at the moment of fill, with no order book mismatch.
• On-chain transparency. Positions, p&l, vault state, funding rates are all readable on-chain in real time.
• Non-custodial. Your collateral lives in your wallet until you open a position. Avantis cannot move it without your signature.

common misconceptions

Some confusions about Avantis and why they're wrong.

• "Avantis is just GMX on Base." Different LP model, different oracle architecture, different fee structure. Comparable category, different mechanism.
• "Oracle-priced perps can be manipulated." In theory yes, in practice the oracles used (Pyth, Chainlink) are battle-tested across many billions of dollars of TVL. Manipulation is expensive and rare.
• "On-chain perps have shallow liquidity." Not true on Base in 2025. Avantis routinely supports multi-thousand-x notional sizes without significant impact.",
• "Avantis is centralized because it relies on oracles." It uses decentralized oracle networks. The protocol itself is non-custodial.
• "LP yields are too good to be true." Yields are real but variable. They compress when trader p&l is favorable and expand when traders give back to the vault. Read the docs.

fees and costs on avantis

For full context on fees, see zero-fee perp and funding rate. Avantis specifically charges:

1. A small open/close fee, paid to the vault.
2. A dynamic skew fee that scales with how unbalanced the vault's exposure is — incentivizing traders to take the underbalanced side.
3. A funding rate that flows between longs and shorts.
4. A borrow / utilization fee that scales with vault utilization.

These are pretty standard for an on-chain perp. They are also why Avantis can sustain deep liquidity — the vault gets paid for taking the directional risk.

why uponly.win routes to avantis specifically

There are several perp venues we could have built on top of. We chose Avantis for five specific reasons.

1. It is on Base. Same chain as the rest of our stack — onramp, smart wallets, paymaster, everything.
2. Up to 500x leverage. The arcade format depends on being able to express max-leverage trades cleanly.
3. Broad pair coverage. Forex, commodities, and the full crypto suite means the RIP button can pull from a deeper pool of random pairs.
4. Oracle-priced execution. We do not have to worry about order book slippage screwing up the arcade ux.
5. The team is responsive and ships fast. Important when we are integrating new pairs and new mechanics weekly.

where uponly.win fits in

uponly.win is a thin one-tap arcade layer on top of Avantis. When you tap RIP, we sign a transaction that opens a real perpetual position on Avantis on Base. The collateral comes from your smart wallet, the gas is paid by our paymaster, and the position settles against the Avantis vault. We charge nothing on losses and a small variable cut on net winnings only. The arcade frame is ours. The actual trading venue is Avantis.

Read hit.one vs uponly.win for how this routing choice contrasts with house-style arcades. The RIP button is at uponly.win.