Practical Guide · DeFi / Perpetuals
Understanding and using StandX
Leverage, margin, TP/SL orders, liquidation, yield-bearing DUSD, community Vaults, the Market Maker Uptime Program and referrals: the complete guide to trading and earning yield on the StandX decentralized perpetuals exchange, while understanding its risks too.
- Multi-chain perpetuals trading
- DUSD, a yield-bearing stablecoin
- Vaults & Market Making
- Referrals & points
This document is an educational guide based on StandX's public documentation. It does not constitute financial advice. Leveraged trading carries the risk of total loss of capital.
Unofficial guide, sources: docs.standx.com · 2026 Edition
Contents
Table of Contents
The key points to understand StandX from A to Z.
- What is StandX?
- Getting started: deposits and DUSD, margin that pays you
- Leverage and margin
- Funding Rate and market safety
- Take Profit / Stop Loss orders
- Liquidation: how it works, how to avoid it
- Trading fees (maker / taker)
- Community Vaults
- Market Maker Uptime Program
- The referral program
- SIP-5: universal markets
- Risk summary
- Beginner checklist & resources
What StandX brings, in one picture
- DUSD deposityield-bearing stablecoin
- Leveraged tradingperpetuals up to 40x
- TP / SL / Vaultsrisk management
- Yield + pointsMaker Hours, referrals
01 · Overview
What is StandX?
“Here, your margin never sleeps: it keeps generating yield while you trade.”
StandX is a decentralized perpetuals exchange (perps DEX), multi-chain (BNB Chain, Solana), founded by former members of the Binance Futures founding team. Its distinctive feature is combining leveraged trading with margin that continuously generates yield, thanks to its in-house stablecoin, DUSD.
In practice, the money you deposit for trading does not sit "idle": it keeps producing on-chain yield while you trade, which sets StandX apart from most traditional exchanges where margin earns nothing.
Team & positioning
Built by Binance Futures veterans, with infrastructure designed for performance and transparency: fully on-chain settlement.
Two pillars
Universal Yield (DUSD, margin that pays you) and Universal Markets (SIP-5, permissionless markets open to the community).
The product's building blocks
| Block | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Perps | Leveraged perpetual contract trading on BTC, ETH, gold (XAU) and other assets. |
| DUSD | Stablecoin used as margin, backed by delta-neutral assets, generates passive yield. |
| Vaults | Vaults that absorb liquidation risk and let users provide market-making capital. |
| Maker Uptime Program | Rewards for users who post limit orders close to the price (liquidity providers). |
| Referrals / Points | Points and bonus system for the user and their referrals. |
| SIP-5 | Governance framework allowing the community to create its own markets (perps, prediction, pre-markets…). |
02 · Getting started
Getting started: deposits and DUSD, margin that pays you
Before trading, you need to fund your StandX Perps account with DUSD, the platform's margin, settlement, and quote currency.
Connect a wallet
Connect your compatible wallet (BNB Chain / Solana depending on the chosen network) to the StandX interface.
Mint / deposit DUSD
You can mint DUSD from USDT or USDC, or deposit existing DUSD directly. As soon as you hold DUSD, it automatically starts generating yield, with no staking or lock-up required.
Transfer to your Perps account
DUSD becomes the margin available to open leveraged positions on the perpetual markets.
Trade and/or let it grow
The balance not used as margin keeps generating yield, you can trade actively or simply let your DUSD work for you.
How DUSD generates yield
When a user mints DUSD with another stablecoin, the protocol converts those funds into assets like ETH or SOL, while simultaneously opening a short perpetual position of equivalent size. This "delta-neutral" construction hedges price exposure: yield comes from funding payments and other internal revenue, not directional speculation. A reserve fund exists to keep paying yield even in weeks when the protocol's revenue would be negative.
03 · Trading mechanics
Leverage and margin
To open a leveraged position, you need to provide initial margin: a fraction of the position's total value, used as collateral. This margin percentage determines the maximum leverage available.
The lower the required initial margin, the higher the available leverage, and the closer the liquidation risk.
Initial margin
The minimum collateral required to open a position. It sets the maximum leverage (e.g. 2.5%, 40x).
Maintenance margin
The minimum margin level to keep to maintain the position open. Below it, liquidation may be triggered.
The reference price (mark price)
StandX calculates a "mark price" designed to be difficult to manipulate: it combines the oracle index, an adjustment linked to upcoming funding, and the recent gap between StandX prices and the index, then keeps the median of the three values. This prevents a single outlier price from distorting your PnL calculations or triggering an unjustified liquidation.
Example: initial margin and leverage
04 · Market mechanisms
Funding Rate and market safety
The funding rate is the mechanism that keeps the perpetual contract's price aligned with the spot price. It mainly depends on two components: a reference interest rate, and the premium or discount between the perpetual price and the spot price.
In practice: if the perpetual price is above spot (a predominantly bullish market), long positions pay a funding fee to short positions, and vice versa. This periodic payment adds to or subtracts from your PnL, independent of the price movement itself.
Auto-Deleveraging (ADL), the ultimate safety net
ADL is a last-resort mechanism that automatically reduces the most exposed winning traders' positions during extreme market conditions, to guarantee the platform's solvency. StandX only uses it after exhausting other protections:
05 · Risk management
Take Profit / Stop Loss (TP/SL) orders
TP/SL orders are trigger orders that automate risk management: you set a price level in advance, and when the market reaches or crosses it, a closing order is automatically submitted.
Take Profit (TP)
Automatically secures your gains: when the price hits your target, the position closes to lock in profit.
Stop Loss (SL)
Limits your losses: when the price crosses your tolerance threshold, the position closes to avoid a larger loss.
Key points to know
- Execution depends on liquidity: a TP/SL triggers at the target price, but actual execution happens at the best available price on the order book, in a highly volatile market, slippage is possible.
- Not an absolute guarantee: during a violent price gap, the order may execute further away than the exact level set.
- Always use with leverage: on a highly leveraged position, the absence of an SL exposes you to outright liquidation rather than a controlled exit.
06 · Risk management
Liquidation: how it works, how to avoid it
When your margin falls below the required maintenance level, StandX triggers a liquidation to protect the market. The process happens in stages, not all at once:
Progressive liquidation (in tranches)
The system liquidates the position in tranches, starting with the riskiest portion.
Check after each tranche
After each partial order, the system checks whether the remaining margin has risen back above the required threshold. If so, liquidation stops immediately.
If margin does not recover
The process continues until the position is fully liquidated, or until margin becomes sufficient again.
Vault takeover (extreme case)
If the protocol's Vault can no longer absorb the risk, the system may activate ADL. In extreme volatility, the Vault may take over a position at its bankruptcy price, potentially much less favorable than the market liquidation price.
- Small positions: often liquidated in full, with total loss of the margin engaged.
- Large positions: may suffer a significant capital loss even during a partial liquidation.
- Monitoring is your responsibility: alerts (margin calls) may be sent as a courtesy, but their delivery is not guaranteed, it's up to you to actively monitor your margin.
07 · Trading costs
Trading fees: maker vs taker
StandX distinguishes two order types for fee calculation:
| Order type | Definition | Indicative fee |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Adds liquidity to the order book (limit order not immediately executed) | 0.01% |
| Taker | Removes liquidity (market order, or limit order executed immediately) | 0.04% |
Fees are calculated on the notional value of each executed trade. Rates may change: always check the official documentation for current values.
08 · Passive yield
Community Vaults
Vaults let users deposit DUSD into a managed pool, which acts as market counterparty and absorbs part of the platform's liquidation risk. In exchange, depositors receive a share of the yield generated by this activity.
SIP-5B, Community Vault Manager
As part of SIP-5 governance, StandX has opened Community Vaults allowing managers selected by the community to operate their own market-making vault, with a dedicated rewards system (for example, campaigns where the initial deposit and the manager's performance determine the earnings).
Passive depositor
You place DUSD into an existing Vault and receive a share of the yield generated by the vault's market-making activity, without having to manage orders yourself.
Vault manager
A more active and selective role: managing the vault's strategy for the community, with higher earning potential but also performance accountability.
09 · Providing liquidity
Market Maker Uptime Program
This program rewards users who post limit orders (maker) on the order book and meet presence ("uptime") requirements. The goal is to incentivize stable liquidity rather than raw trading volume.
How it works
Place orders on both sides
Keep active buy and sell orders in a tight band around the price (within 10 basis points of the spread), for at least 30 minutes per hour to get full credit.
Accumulate "Maker Hours"
Each hour your orders meet the proximity and duration criteria earns you Maker Hours, weighted by your order size.
Proximity bonus
Orders placed closest to the mark price are worth up to 2× their notional size: the tighter you quote, the more you're rewarded, without necessarily needing more capital.
Monthly rewards
A pool of several million tokens is redistributed each month based on accumulated Maker Hours, with tiers (e.g. MM1 / MM2) giving access to reduced fees and an additional rebate.
10 · Growth & rewards
The referral program
StandX offers a points system accumulated through trading, holding DUSD (in the Perps wallet or in Vaults), and referrals. Each new user invited via a referral link generates a bonus, both for them and for the referrer.
How it works
You share your personal referral link. When a referral joins the platform and accumulates points (via trading, holding DUSD, etc.), you receive a proportional bonus, typically around 5% of the points generated by your referrals.
Concrete example
If your referral accumulates 300 points, you receive an additional bonus of about 15 points (5% of 300), on top of the points you generate yourself.
These points generally feed into future incentive or distribution programs, their exact value and conversion terms depend on the campaigns currently running on StandX, which should be checked directly on the official site.
11 · Governance & ecosystem
SIP-5: universal, permissionless markets
SIP-5 is the governance framework that opens up market creation to the community, without relying on a centralized listing committee. Anyone can, by following transparent protocol rules, launch a perpetuals market, a spot asset, a prediction market, or a pre-market.
For the end user, this means a potentially larger catalog of markets that can evolve faster than on a traditional centralized exchange, but also greater vigilance is required, since a "community" market does not necessarily have the same level of liquidity or scrutiny as a long-established market like BTC or ETH.
The SIP-5 "infinite loop"
12 · Read before trading
Risk summary
StandX, like any leveraged derivatives exchange, carries real risks. Here are the main ones to keep in mind:
- Liquidation risk: with leverage, a relatively small price move can lead to the total loss of the margin engaged in a position.
- Funding risk: a persistently unfavorable funding rate can erode PnL even if the price moves in your favor.
- ADL risk: even a winning position can be forcibly reduced during extreme market conditions.
- "Vault takeover" risk: during high volatility, the protocol may take over a position at its bankruptcy price, less favorable than the market price.
- DUSD-related risk: although designed as delta-neutral and backed by a reserve fund, DUSD remains a crypto asset with a hedging mechanism that depends on derivatives markets, it is not a guaranteed bank deposit.
- Smart contract / protocol risk: as with any DeFi platform, technical risk (bugs, exploits) can never be fully ruled out, despite audits.
- Individual responsibility risk: monitoring your positions and margin is entirely up to you; platform notifications are a courtesy, not a guarantee.
- Risk related to "community" markets (SIP-5): permissionlessly listed markets may have lower liquidity and higher volatility than long-established pairs.
13 · In conclusion
Beginner checklist
Start small: test with an amount I'm prepared to lose, before increasing my position sizes.
Master my leverage: avoid the maximum available leverage; keep a comfortable safety margin above the maintenance threshold.
Always set a Stop Loss: never leave a leveraged position without protection against an adverse move.
Diversify my yield sources: combine, depending on my profile: active trading, passive DUSD deposits, Maker Uptime, Vaults, referrals.
Always check the official documentation: fee rates, leverage thresholds, and campaign parameters change over time, refer to docs.standx.com for current values.
Official resources
| Resource | Content |
|---|---|
| docs.standx.com | Complete technical documentation (margin, liquidation, funding, ADL, TP/SL, campaigns) |
| standx.com | Trading platform and Vaults page |
| standx.com/point | Points tracking and the referral program |
Thank you for reading this guide to the end! Remember the essentials: start small, master your leverage, always protect your positions with a Stop Loss, and do your own research before every decision. Happy trading on StandX.