Base DEX Offers Custom Risk for LPs
Avantis, a new perpetuals DEX on Base, has received an investment from the Base Ecosystem Fund. The protocol allows liquidity providers to select specific risk tranches, choosing between earning higher fees or having greater exposure to trader profits and losses on both crypto and forex pairs.
Avantis functions as a synthetic derivatives protocol, meaning traders use USDC as collateral to trade on the price of assets without owning them. This model allows for the creation of a "universal leverage layer" where a single USDC liquidity vault acts as the counterparty for all trades, a capital-efficient design that supports over 80 markets, including 22 real-world assets (RWAs). The protocol's risk tranching allows LPs to choose between a senior tranche, which takes on about 35% of profits and losses for more stable returns, and a junior tranche, which assumes approximately 65% of the risk for potentially higher yields. This structure is complemented by time-lock options, where longer capital commitments can result in greater fee rewards. Since its mainnet launch in February 2024, Avantis has processed over $69 billion in cumulative trading volume. The project has raised a total of $12 million, with a $4 million seed round in September 2023 and an $8 million Series A in June 2025. Key investors include Pantera Capital, Founders Fund, and Galaxy Digital. Beyond its risk management features for LPs, Avantis offers traders up to 500x leverage on a range of assets including crypto, forex, and commodities. The platform has also introduced innovations like zero-fee perpetuals, where fees are only paid on profitable trades, and loss rebates for traders who take positions that help balance market skew. The native token, AVNT, is used for governance and can be staked in the protocol's Security Module. This module acts as an insurance fund for liquidity providers, and in return for staking, users can receive rewards and trading fee discounts of up to 40%. In the event of extreme market volatility causing significant LP losses, up to 20% of the staked AVNT could be used to cover the shortfall. Avantis is one of the first six projects to receive investment from the Base Ecosystem Fund, which is led by Coinbase Ventures. The fund's thesis focuses on supporting innovative and disruptive financial technologies on the Base network. Other projects in the initial cohort include the decentralized exchange BSX and the on-chain creator platform Paragraph.
