Trading Overview
How dominance trading works on DomFi — execution flow, leverage, and what you need to start trading on Base L2.
What Are Perpetual Futures?
Perpetual futures are leveraged derivative contracts that track an underlying index indefinitely — no expiry, no settlement date. Unlike traditional futures that roll over quarterly, perps stay open until you close them or get liquidated. DomFi perps track dominance indices (each asset's share of total crypto market cap) rather than raw asset prices, letting you trade structural market shifts with up to 250x leverage.
What You Need
- A wallet. MetaMask, Rabby, or Coinbase Wallet. Connect to Base (chain ID 8453).
- ETH on Base. Covers gas. A few dollars is plenty.
- USDC on Base. Your collateral. Native Circle-issued USDC, not bridged variants.
- A small ETH balance on Base. Each trade action requires ~0.00003 ETH for oracle price verification. A few dollars of ETH covers hundreds of trades.
Need to move funds to Base? Use Base Bridge or Across to bridge from Ethereum mainnet.
Available Pairs
Five dominance pairs are live on Base mainnet:
| Pair | Tracks | Max Leverage |
|---|---|---|
| BTCDOM | Bitcoin's share of total crypto market cap | 250x |
| ETHDOM | Ethereum's share | 250x |
| USDTDOM | Tether's share | 250x |
| BNBDOM | BNB's share | 250x |
| SOLDOM | Solana's share | 250x |
All pairs share identical fee parameters and leverage limits. Each supports up to $10M in open interest per direction.
For how dominance is calculated and sourced, see Dominance.
How Execution Works
All trades on DomFi settle through verified oracle prices. The execution flow depends on the order type, not whether you're opening or closing — both actions use the same underlying mechanism.
Market Orders
Market orders follow a request-fulfill pattern:
- You submit the order on-chain (open or close). It's queued via DomfiPriceRouter.
- The oracle bot detects the request, computes the latest dominance price from weighted exchange feeds, and submits a signed price on-chain.
- DomfiVerifier checks the signature. DomfiTradingCallbacks executes the trade at the verified price.
The whole cycle takes a few seconds. Guaranteed fill.
Two-step execution prevents frontrunning. Every trade settles at a price the oracle has verified, not a price you could manipulate by timing your transaction.
Limit & Stop Orders
Limit and stop orders are stored on-chain and wait for price conditions to be met:
- You place the order. Collateral is locked in DomfiTradingStorage.
- Protocol automation bots (DomfiTradesUpKeep) continuously monitor oracle prices against your target.
- When conditions are met, the bot triggers execution — same price verification and settlement as market orders.
This same store-monitor-trigger flow handles TP/SL on open positions. No trader action needed after placement. Orders can be updated or cancelled at any time.
| Type | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Market | Executes immediately at the current oracle price, subject to slippage tolerance. Guaranteed fill. |
| Limit | Triggers when the price reaches your target. Buy limit fills below target price, sell limit fills above. Better entry, but may never trigger. |
| Stop | Triggers when the price breaks through your target. Buy stop fills above target price, sell stop fills below. Used to enter on momentum or breakouts. |
Margin Mode
All positions on DomFi use isolated margin. Each position has its own collateral, its own leverage, and its own liquidation price. Losses on one position do not affect another.
Cross-margin (shared collateral across positions) is not supported.
Leverage
Position size equals collateral times leverage.
Example: $100 collateral at 50x leverage = $5,000 of exposure to the dominance index. You control 50x more than you put up.
At 250x, the math gets tight. A 0.4% adverse move wipes your entire collateral.
High leverage compresses your margin of error to nearly nothing. At 250x, fees alone consume a significant chunk of collateral before the trade even moves. See Fees for the exact math.
The Vault as Counterparty
Every trade settles against the USDC vault. Liquidity providers deposit USDC into an ERC-4626 vault, and that pooled capital sits on the other side of every position. When traders profit, the vault pays. When traders lose, the vault collects. Trading fees flow to vault depositors as yield.
For details on providing liquidity, see Vault Overview.