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GMX V2 Perps

Rejected
Max sleeve
Reviewed
2026-08-14 · v1
Next review
2026-11-15
Chains
Arbitrum One · hybrid, Avalanche · crypto-backed

Rejected venues wait the longest for re-review; a rejection has to earn another look before the scheduled date.

GMX V2 GM and GLV pools are market-making capital for swaps and leveraged perpetuals, not passive deposits. LP value changes with pool assets, fees, funding and traders’ net PnL. That counterparty inventory payoff falls within the AMM class even though it is not the constant-product impermanent-loss formula; no claim of a GMX security defect is made.

The research file

Mechanism

Each GM market isolates a long token and short token and backs trading against that market. GM token value includes pool asset value plus pending trader PnL: trader profits reduce the pool and trader losses increase it. GLV vaults allocate across eligible GM markets subject to utilization controls.

Control and risk controls

GMX documents PnL caps, automatic deleveraging, virtual inventory, price-impact parameters and a two-phase oracle process. These are substantive protections, and risk parameters may use external analysis such as Chaos Labs. They limit rather than eliminate exposure to oracle execution, utilization, asset prices and profitable traders.

Exit consequences

Withdrawal returns the market’s available long or short assets at prevailing oracle and price-impact terms. Pending PnL, pool imbalance, caps and any disabled deposit/withdrawal path can affect realizable value. A holder cannot demand the original asset mix or principal.

Why the class rule decides

The LP deliberately supplies inventory and takes the economic other side of leveraged order flow. Fees compensate that path-dependent risk, so the amm-lp rule is dispositive regardless of GMX’s controls or maturity. Review reopens for a product whose return is not funded by pooled trading inventory.

Sources

The claims above trace to these. Where a number could not be independently verified, the thesis says so.

Inherited controls

The verdict above grades the protocol layer. Every position also inherits the asset it holds and the chain it settles on. The least safe layer sets the position’s grade, and the position table names which one that is.

ChainVerdictGradeControl constraint
Arbitrum OneApproved · limits hybrid a single sequencer orders >99% of transactions and admin keys can upgrade bridge contracts on a ~7-day timelock.
AvalancheApproved · limits crypto-backed no party can freeze or seize C-Chain funds, but one vendor writes the only production client and Messari measured over a third of stake hosted on AWS.
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