Avantis: A Decentralized Perpetual Contract Platform Supporting Real World Assets
The Avantis whitepaper was conceived and published by the Avantis core team in 2024, aiming to address the pain points of transparent, permissionless, and institution-grade derivatives trading in decentralized finance (DeFi).
The Avantis whitepaper outlines its vision as a “decentralized, scalable, and user-centric perpetual contract exchange.” Avantis stands out by offering up to 500x leverage for cryptocurrency and real-world asset (RWA) trading on the Base chain, and introducing a “zero-fee” model that only charges on profitable trades. The significance of Avantis lies in bridging the gap between DeFi and global macro markets, laying the foundation for decentralized global leveraged finance.
Avantis was created to solve fragmented access and limited leverage in the DeFi derivatives space, striving to deliver a trading experience that combines the speed and capital efficiency of centralized exchanges with the transparency and self-custody of decentralization. The core thesis of the Avantis whitepaper is: by building a transparent, permissionless, and efficient system on the Base blockchain, supporting high-leverage trading of cryptocurrencies and real-world assets, Avantis aims to reshape the decentralized derivatives market.
Avantis whitepaper summary
What is Avantis
Friends, imagine you have a super powerful “digital trading marketplace” that not only lets you buy and sell cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, but also allows you to trade “digital contracts” for gold, oil, forex (such as USD/EUR), and even stock indices (like the S&P 500)—just like in traditional financial markets. This marketplace is what we’re talking about today: Avantis, a decentralized perpetual contract exchange (DEX).
Perpetual Futures: Think of this as a special type of trading protocol that lets you predict and invest in the future price movements of an asset, with no fixed expiry date—you can hold your position as long as you want.
The most unique aspect of Avantis is that it’s like a “zero-fee” supermarket: you only pay a small fee when your trade is profitable. If your trade loses money, you don’t pay any opening or closing fees. Plus, it allows you to trade with up to 500x leverage, meaning you can control a much larger asset value with less capital—though the risk also increases accordingly.
This platform is built on the Base network, which is a Layer 2 network based on Ethereum launched by Coinbase (a major crypto exchange). Its advantages are fast transaction speeds and low costs, making it easy for more people to participate.
Project Vision and Value Proposition
Avantis dreams of becoming the “universal leverage layer” in decentralized finance (DeFi). Simply put, it aims to bring all kinds of asset trading from traditional financial markets—such as forex and commodities—onto the blockchain, so anyone can participate in high-leverage trading anytime, anywhere, without permission.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Refers to financial services built on blockchain technology, which do not rely on traditional banks or centralized intermediaries, but are executed automatically via smart contracts.
The core problems it wants to solve are:
- Pain points of traditional centralized exchanges: On traditional centralized exchanges, you have to entrust your funds to the platform, which involves trust risks, potentially high trading fees, and lack of transparency.
- Limitations of existing DeFi platforms: Many decentralized trading platforms have fragmented liquidity, limited product variety, and inefficient leverage trading.
Avantis attracts users by introducing a “zero-fee perpetual contract” model—charging only on profitable trades—and supporting trading of multiple cryptocurrencies and real-world assets (RWA). Real World Assets (RWA): Refers to tokenizing tangible or intangible assets from the real world (such as real estate, art, stocks, bonds, etc.) via blockchain technology, enabling them to be traded and managed on-chain.
Compared to similar projects, Avantis stands out in:
- Zero-fee perpetual contracts: This innovation allows traders to open or close positions without paying fees, only paying a small portion of profits as fees when they win.
- Customizable liquidity provider risk: As a liquidity provider (LP), you can choose your own risk level and lock-up period, earning different rewards accordingly.
- Loss rebate: When your trade goes against the market trend and loses money, Avantis offers up to a 20% loss rebate, helping balance risk and encouraging contrarian trading strategies.
Technical Features
The technical core of Avantis is its decentralized perpetual contract trading platform built on the Base network.
- High-leverage trading: It allows users to trade cryptocurrencies, forex, commodities, and indices with up to 500x leverage.
- Zero-fee model: As mentioned, traders only pay fees when profitable, lowering the barrier and cost to trade.
- Liquidity Pool: Avantis uses USDC (a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar) as the core liquidity pool asset, providing high capital efficiency and supporting multiple assets and high-leverage trading.
- Risk management: The platform features a dynamic risk engine and innovative liquidity provider risk management mechanisms, allowing LPs to manage their risk exposure by setting time and risk parameters.
- Dual oracle pricing: To ensure price accuracy and resistance to manipulation, Avantis uses a dual oracle system to fetch asset prices.
Smart Contract: Code stored on the blockchain that automatically executes protocols when preset conditions are met, without third-party intervention.
Tokenomics
The native token of the Avantis project is AVNT, which serves as the “fuel” and “voting power” of the entire ecosystem.
- Token symbol: AVNT
- Issuing chain: Base network (ERC20 standard)
- Total supply: The total supply of AVNT is fixed at 1 billion tokens.
- Token utility:
- Governance: AVNT holders can participate in protocol governance and vote on key decisions, such as adjusting fee structures, listing new trading pairs, and upgrading protocol parameters.
- Staking: Holders can stake AVNT tokens to earn protocol rewards and fee sharing, as well as trading fee discounts and loyalty program XP boosts.
- Incentives: AVNT tokens are also used to incentivize community members, including airdrops for early users, rewards for traders and liquidity providers, and support for ecosystem development.
- Token allocation:
- Community: Over half of the tokens (50.1%) are allocated to the community, including airdrops (12.5% for early users), ongoing rewards for traders and liquidity providers (28.6%), and support for developers on the Avantis ecosystem (9%).
- Investors: 26.6% of tokens are allocated to investors.
- Circulation info: As of now, about 260 million AVNT tokens are tradable on the market. The fully diluted valuation (FDV) is about $629 million, which is the maximum market cap if all 1 billion AVNT tokens are in circulation.
Staking: The process of locking cryptocurrencies in a blockchain network to support its operation and earn rewards.
Team, Governance, and Funding
- Team: The Avantis project was founded in 2024 by a group of professionals with extensive experience in blockchain engineering, quantitative finance, and DeFi protocol development. Team members have previously worked at Binance, Quantopian, and other well-known fintech companies.
- Governance: Avantis adopts a decentralized governance model, with AVNT token holders having voting rights to help decide the protocol’s future direction, such as proposing new assets, adjusting fees, or upgrading risk parameters.
- Funding: Avantis is backed by well-known investment institutions.
- In September 2023, Avantis raised $4 million in a seed round led by Pantera Capital. Other investors included Founders Fund, Galaxy Digital, Base Ecosystem Fund, and Modular Capital.
- In June 2025, the company raised an additional $8 million in a Series A round co-led by Founders Fund and Pantera Capital. New investors included Symbolic Capital, SALT Fund, and Flowdesk.
- Notably, Avantis is the first perpetual contract DEX to receive investment from the Base network.
Roadmap
Since its founding in 2024, Avantis has made significant progress and has clear plans for the future:
- Early 2024: The project began extensive research and protocol development, focusing on smart contract security and liquidity aggregation.
- Early 2024: Launched the mainnet and perpetual contract trading platform on the Base chain.
- Late 2024: Successfully launched the testnet, demonstrating seamless trading of cryptocurrencies and real-world assets.
- September 3, 2025: Season 2 XP (experience points) event officially ended, with an on-chain snapshot taken to record all user activity, which may be related to future token allocation.
- Future plans: Avantis plans to continue expanding the types of real-world assets (RWA) and aims to become the “universal leverage layer” in DeFi.
Common Risk Reminders
Although the Avantis project sounds promising, any blockchain project comes with risks, especially in the decentralized finance (DeFi) and high-leverage trading sectors. Here are some common risks to be aware of:
- Technical and security risks:
- Smart contract vulnerabilities: Even after audits, smart contracts may have undiscovered bugs that could lead to loss of funds.
- Oracle risk: If the oracles used to fetch price data fail or are manipulated, it could cause abnormal trading prices and affect user assets.
- Network risk: The Base network or Ethereum itself may face technical failures or attacks, impacting Avantis’s operations.
- Economic risks:
- High-leverage trading risk: Up to 500x leverage means huge potential gains but also extremely high risk of loss—even small market moves can trigger liquidation.
- Liquidity risk: Under extreme market conditions, liquidity may be insufficient, making trades hard to execute or causing large price slippage.
- Token price volatility: The price of AVNT tokens is affected by market supply and demand, project progress, macroeconomics, and other factors, and may fluctuate sharply, posing investment risks.
- Impermanent loss: For liquidity providers, if the price of staked assets changes, they may face impermanent loss.
- Compliance and operational risks:
- Regulatory uncertainty: Global regulations on cryptocurrencies and DeFi are still evolving, and future policy changes may impact project operations.
- Competition risk: The decentralized perpetual contract market is highly competitive, and Avantis must keep innovating to stay ahead.
Please remember, the above information is for reference only and does not constitute investment advice. Always do your own research (DYOR) and understand all potential risks before participating in any cryptocurrency project.
Verification Checklist
To help you better understand the Avantis project, here are some key verification details and links:
- Block explorer contract address: The contract address for AVNT tokens on the Base network is
0x696F9436B67233384889472Cd7cD58A6fB5DF4f1. You can view token issuance, holders, and transaction records on block explorers like BaseScan.
- GitHub activity: Avantis provides SDK documentation and sample code. You can check the project’s development activity in its GitHub repository.
- Official website: Visit Avantis’s official website (e.g., avantisfi.com) for the latest information and announcements.
- Whitepaper/Documentation: Read the project’s whitepaper or official documentation for in-depth technical details and vision.
- Social media: Follow Avantis on Twitter and Discord for community discussions and project updates.
Project Summary
Avantis is a decentralized perpetual contract exchange running on the Base network, dedicated to bringing high-leverage trading of cryptocurrencies and traditional financial assets (such as forex and commodities) to the DeFi world. Its core innovations include “zero-fee perpetual contracts” (charging only on profitable trades), up to 500x leverage, and customizable risk management options for liquidity providers. The AVNT token, as the project’s native token, is used for governance, enabling community participation in decision-making, and can be staked for protocol rewards and trading discounts. The project team consists of experienced professionals and is backed by well-known institutions such as Pantera Capital and the Base Ecosystem Fund, demonstrating its industry recognition.
Avantis aims to become the “universal leverage layer” in DeFi, enabling global users to participate in complex financial derivatives trading in a transparent, permissionless way. However, it’s important to note that high-leverage trading carries significant risks, and market volatility can lead to rapid capital loss. Additionally, smart contract vulnerabilities, oracle risks, and the ever-changing regulatory environment are factors investors need to consider.
Overall, Avantis brings innovative models and broad vision to the decentralized derivatives space, but its long-term success will depend on technical security, market adoption, and effective risk management. For anyone interested, it is strongly recommended to conduct thorough research, assess its potential value and risks, and always remember this is not investment advice.