
darklord of $DIME founder @tradeparadigm, @paradex
Maia
Joined November 2015
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ADL is a relic of isolated margin systems copied from @BitMEX. It doesn’t work for options, and at best is a terrible experience for cross-margin users.
Paradex deliberately chose not to implement ADL.
It breaks cross-platform hedges, adds a lot of unpredictability to users’ risk management, and fails for complex assets and portfolio-margin setups. There’s also no guarantee of finding profitable ADL counterparties under cross margin, without further amplifying liquidations. @DeribitOfficial also operates without ADL.
Socialized loss (SL) is a far better experience for users and scales easily to more complex assets and margin types 👇
Portfolio-Level Integrity
ADL operates at the single-market level, without considering the user’s overall account exposure. The trader who is high on the ADL queue due to a highly profitable/leveraged position on one market isn't necessarily profitable on an account level.
Example:
BTC = $100,000, ETH = $4,000
Insurance Fund (IF) = $100,000 collateral + short 40 BTC perps.
Alice has a $4M BTC-ETH spread on, i.e. +40 BTC perps (long) and –1,000 ETH perps (short)
→ Both BTC and ETH rally +5%
→ BTC to $105,000, ETH to $4,200.
Under a normal scenario, Alice’s BTC and ETH positions offset, leaving her with flat PnL. But the insurance fund’s bankruptcy price is $102,500. To protect the fund, ADL is triggered and forces Alice’s BTC leg to be closed at $102,500 as it cannot afford a loss that is higher than $100,000. Alice realizes BTC profits based on a 2.5% move while her ETH short continues to lose 5%, leaving her with a $100,000 loss. This can, in theory, lead to an unfair liquidation of Alice's account.
"Ethena" Risk
The same is true for a trader that could be holding the opposite position on a different exchange. If the position is subject to ADL, it closes the profitable leg, leaving the user with a naked losing leg. This destroys the intended hedge and amplifies risk exposure. @ethena smartly negotiated this provision away for it's trading on CEXs but that now means the risk of ADL is being unfairly borne by the exchange's other users. Smart for Ethena but not scalable for the exchange.
Given the potential market exposure imposed on affected accounts, ADL often triggers a forced unwind of positions, leading to fire-sale behavior that further amplifies market volatility and erodes liquidity.
This mechanism is particularly unsuitable for exchanges with options, where users frequently hold multiple correlated instruments on the same underlying asset for hedging or risk-neutral strategies. In such environments, forcibly closing a single profitable leg through ADL can break portfolio hedges, destabilize the portfolio and, by extension, the market.
To our knowledge, NO EXCHANGE discloses how cross-instrument exposures are handled under ADL.
Conditional + Reversible
Under a SL mechanism, losses are conditional, deferred (not immediately realized) and give users a choice. They are applied only upon withdrawal, and only if the platform is still experiencing a solvency deficit at that time.
If the market rebounds, or if the insurance fund grows (either through profitable liquidations or additional allocations) and covers the deficit, the shortfall is erased and no SL is applied.
By contrast, ADL crystallizes losses instantly and doesn’t give the user a choice. If a sudden market move causes insurance fund depletion, the system immediately closes profitable positions via deleveraging. Those users now permanently lose their realized profits.
SL introduces time, and recovery potential into the loss-allocation process while giving users a choice. It penalizes only those who exit during insolvency, while long-term users benefit if solvency is later restored.
Fair + Predictable Risk Distribution
ADL targets specific traders (often highly leveraged and profitable ones), forcibly closing their positions to cover the platform shortfall. It penalizes traders for system-level insolvencies outside their control.
SL by comparison avoids arbitrary targeting and maintains fairness. All users share the risk evenly and only when a persistent shortfall exists.
Transparency
ADL is a complex, queue-based mechanism that is very hard to anticipate for users. In contrast, a SL adjustment is a simple, transparent function of the insurance fund shortfall relative to the platform’s TVL. As it affects users only when they withdraw, it ensures predictability and transparency in the loss allocation.
Compute Efficient = "Chain Friendly"
SL simplicity makes it straightforward to implement on-chain in a trustless manner. There is less compute complexity which means cost and throughput constraints are alleviated. ADL’s dynamic queue logic is computationally heavy as it requires scanning all accounts on the platform, making it very expensive and error-prone. It also adds congestion to a system that is likely to already be congested when ADL is triggered.
October 10 = Wake Up Call
If your CEX can’t guarantee portfolio integrity under stress, it’s the architecture that’s broken. Switch to DEXs with intelligent loss-allocation that protects hedges, distributes risk fairly while staying conditional and predictable.
Paradexio
This is so highly misleading by only focusing on the ADL on the largest coins, which suffered from far less price discolation and ADL overall than other coins
If you are running a long / short book as I was, you are long these assets below, not short them
This also looks at ADL in a vacuum, and without regard to anything else in an account
Your larger shorts are going to be in the other top 50 alts that are dog shit imo (ATOM, STX, APT, FET) - those shorts closed much earlier and blew you out leaving with only longs to liquidate your account
There are so many other places where the @HyperliquidX platform is broken for perps (no ADL transparency / queue, no flash crash protection, one touch price oracles for liquidation (non time based), no whale risk blocker, and zero insurance fund is laughable for someone at $hype scale
So please get this propaganda off my timeline, it is insulting. I can assure you @HyperliquidX did not perform well for anyone running a larger profitable long / short book, or even any sort of mild leverage on just longs. I cannot recommend to anyone serious or an instó to trade on hype when they don't even acknowledge these issues.
In fact, between @DriftProtocol and @dYdX where I run very similar books, only @HyperliquidX blew me out.
Still waiting for my @chameleon_jeff chat 🫡
order builder v2 is out 🔥
+ switching between Market / Limit / RFQ is 1-click
+ improved orderbook animation + visibility
+ confirm buttons with order size/notional values
+ clean AF spacing + layout
+ removed redundant / useless info
plus a ton of other design tweaks
feedback always welcome 🙏
anyone want to run a VTF with this strategy?
We've built the first crypto-options trading strategy on a third-order Greek, the Lightning Greek. It traded BTC daily expiries from March to October 2026. It won 80% of its mornings and returned 5.0% a year in BTC at a Sharpe ratio of 1.77, fees included.
L = ∂³V/∂K³ = e^(−rT) φ(d₂)(d₂ − σ√T) / (K²σ²T)
Summed over open interest, it shows which strikes the in-the-money side has crowded. We read it four hours before the daily settlement. On mornings when BTC has moved less than its options price, we sell the nearest out-of-the-money call and put. A crowded strike is skipped for the next one out.
We backtested it on all 212 expiries, trading 1 to 5 contracts per leg against the real bid book. Two contracts took the return to 9.9% a year. The Sharpe ratio barely moved, 1.76. Five reached 23.8%, on more margin than a 1 BTC account holds.
Through an RFQ it gets better. Sold as block trades at prices from @DeribitOfficial's block tape, the same trades return 7.4% a year per contract at a Sharpe ratio of 2.59.
Every textbook daily seller we ran on the same mornings lost money. The article also shows where our rules break.
The full study, with every rule, every fill and the mornings it lost 👉
cayolargo.fi/research/lightn…
ft. @DeriveXYZ, @ThalexGlobal, @paradex for strategy execution possibilities incl. RFQs
this is 100000% true
token holders have different incentives vs users
and they are not always the same person
as a user when you are picking a platform,
listen to traders and NOT bag(only) holders
they will give u objective advice on spread, UX and fees
may the best platform win!
@PelionCap with the surgical advice... as always
Onchain options has made strides this year.
Certain claims such as 'Hyperliquid of Options' are fun, but other claims relating to liquidity and pricing are real and measurable.
Holders of tokens (should) respond to protocol revenues and multiples of such relating to price.
Users (should) respond to protocol liquidity (if large), pricing+fees (all).
Is anyone comparing @DeriveXYZ v @paradex (using ETH+BTC as common proxy)?
Aside from that, there are differences in offerings and privacy, and a one-stop-shop often wins.
DIME Multi-strategy VTF is yielding 20% APR
it's a good time to be selling vol
👉 app.paradex.trade/vaults/dim…
Hearing more and more that traders are switching to @paradex .
We are the most liquid venue to trade options onchain and it's only a matter of time before users realize they are burning money on spreads.
we're hiring for a PM role for our core business.
@tradeparadigm trades $1B in daily volume
you'll be tasked with growing that 10x in the next 24 months.
you will own our core offerings (RFQ, Complex OBs, MPX and D1-spreads)
you should be options native, and have either worked on a desk or built tools for option traders before, so you understand their language
bonus: you won't have a manager and will report to me directly (we don't have managers in the co)
successful referrals get a $5k bonus
DMs open!
This 👇
Replying to @fiddybps1
Would also add that RFQ allows greater capital efficiency for makers, and enables a breadth of quoting and customization as MMs typically rely on the fact they get last look
this trader would have saved $1500
on spread and fees
if he traded this on Paradex
help a bro out... tell him about @paradex
📈 Bullish $ETH Put Spread 900x ($4.2M)
🟢 Buy $2,100 Put · 30 Oct 26
🔴 Sell $2,200 Put · 30 Oct 26
Max Profit: $11.2K → if ETH at/above $2,200
Max Loss: $78.8K → if ETH at/below $2,100
You Receive: $11.2K | Max Loss → 7.1x your credit
Copy on Paradex 👇
app.paradex.trade/options/ET…
want to know if an exchange is really liquid?
wait for volatility (like today)
MMs pull quotes faster than you can blink
this is where RFQ shines
screen or no screen, get a price on demand
RFQ = always open 👇
fuck so much alpha packed in ~30 mins!!!
if you are serious about trading options
this is a MUST watch every week!
set 30 mins aside to hear from the best
with @dlawant, gReg , @0x_tiago and @minus1_12 !
Theta Gang is back 🔥
The largest trade in Paradigm history: $2.3B notional / 28,000 BTC
Greg Magadini is joined by @minus1_12 from Thalex, @dlawant from Anchorage and @0x_tiago from Paradigm
Ep #3 covers:
+ Why isn’t BTC falling?
+ Who’s paying to be long?
+ Is AI making traders better at options?
RFQ traders on @paradex saved ~$140k last month and the reason is simple - retail pays zero on Paradex.
start contrast to the research making the rounds earlier this week that ~400k retail wallets trading on HL are down $280m..... with over half of those losses went to fees, not trades!!
these two trends are inevitable. the more retail loses to fee drag, the more it hurts retention and the more activity moves to zero fee platforms.
majors liquidity on options has improved 10x in the last month making us the most liquid place to trade options on chain.
but its not just majors... as @domdosu reminded me yesterday, our alts orderbooks also starting to look really good. still small size but this is just a glimpse of what is to come... i expect several orders of magnitude improvement in the coming weeks!
Reminder that you DON’T need
to split your trading
across multiple accounts
you just need BETTER tech ❤️
trade 100+ assets from one unified account on @paradex
You DON’T need to split your trading across multiple accounts
You just need better tech
Trade 100+ options and futures from ONE unified account on:
app.paradex.trade
vol compressing is a function of the market maturing. this is also. a huge structural reason for why options take time to mature. when vol is high it makes insurance very expensive so it means less buyers and it is then generally a seller driven market for the first few years. then once vol gets sold off the buyers step in the latter years and then the market really explodes volume wise. every other alt asset will follow this trend!
$BTC moves half as much as it did in 2021 👀
44% volatility over the past year vs 81% back then. Paradex is pricing the next month at 36%.
Calm market = cheaper options. Are you buying or selling here?
Try it yourself 👇🏻
app.paradex.trade/r/evinho
GODLIKE!!!! 💥💥💥💥💥
LARGEST TRADE IN PARADIGM'S HISTORY!!
Largest trade in @tradeparadigm's history
$2.3B notional / 28,000 BTC 🔥
This liquidity powers Paradex RFQ:
app.paradex.trade
PSA
this taker would have saved $1600 in fees
we put money back in yo pocket
trade on @paradex 😂
📉 Bearish $ETH Put Spread 1000x ($4.8M)
🔴 Sell $2,100 Put · 30 Oct 26
🟢 Buy $2,200 Put · 30 Oct 26
Max Profit: $89.3K → if ETH at/below $2,100
Max Loss: $10.7K → if ETH at/above $2,200
You Pay: $10.7K | Max Profit → 8.3x your cost
Copy on Paradex 👇
app.paradex.trade/options/ET…

























