What is Elysia Perps

Elysia Perps is a perpetual futures protocol developed by ELYSIA. It is also a perpetual futures exchange module: a complete trading engine (order matching, margin, liquidation, settlement, and on-chain custody) that anyone can use to launch their own perp market. It is not a single venue run top-down by one operator; it is the technical core that powers venues.

The exchange you can trade on today is the flagship reference implementation of that module — the first fully built venue it powers, complete with its own UX/UI. When this documentation talks about placing orders, managing positions, or depositing collateral, it is describing that live Elysia Perps exchange.

So you can read Elysia Perps two ways:

• As a trader — it's a hybrid DEX where you trade BTC and US 500 index perps with leverage. Your funds stay in an on-chain smart contract you control, while orders are matched by a fast off-chain engine: the self-custody of a DEX with the speed of a centralized exchange.
• As a builder — it's an exchange module you can launch your own market on, with the live Elysia Perps exchange as the proven template.

New to perps? A perpetual future ("perp") is a contract that lets you take a long or short position on an asset's price with leverage, and has no expiry date. A funding mechanism keeps its price aligned with the underlying market.

Key features

What it is	A perpetual futures exchange module — launch your own market on it
Reference exchange	The live Elysia Perps app — flagship UX/UI built on the module
Product	Perpetual futures (no expiry)
Architecture	Hybrid DEX — on-chain deposits/withdrawals + off-chain matching
Matching	Central Limit Order Book (CLOB)
Margin model	Isolated (cross-margin planned)
Markets	BTC-PERP-EL and US500-PERP-EL live. More markets planned.
Collateral	EL (credited as EL$)
Max leverage	Up to 5×
Login	Wallet signature (EIP-712) — no sign-up, no password

These are the current settings on the live Elysia Perps markets. Elysia Perps is an exchange module: another market launched on it can set its own markets, collateral, leverage, and parameters. See Markets.

How it works

At a high level, trading on Elysia Perps follows three steps:

1. Deposit — You send ERC-20 tokens to the protocol's smart contract. Once the deposit is confirmed on-chain, your balance appears on the exchange. Your collateral is always held by the contract, not by any operator.
2. Trade — You place orders that are matched against the order book by the matching engine. Positions, margin, and PnL are tracked in real time.
3. Withdraw — You withdraw at any time. The exchange deducts your balance and the contract releases the tokens back to your wallet.

Hybrid architecture: deposits held in an on-chain smart contract, orders matched by an off-chain order book engine

Why hybrid?

Fully on-chain order books are slow and expensive; fully centralized exchanges ask you to hand over your funds. Elysia Perps splits the difference:

• Custody is on-chain. Deposits and withdrawals are governed by an auditable smart contract. You can exit to your own wallet at any time.
• Matching is off-chain. A CLOB engine delivers low-latency order matching and a trading experience comparable to a CEX.

A zero-knowledge proof layer is planned for the future to bring matching and settlement integrity further on-chain.

An exchange — and an exchange module

It's worth restating the distinction, because it's what makes Elysia Perps different from a conventional exchange:

• A conventional exchange is a single venue, operated top-down by one company. You can only trade what that operator decides to list.
• Elysia Perps is the module underneath. The matching engine, margin system, liquidation engine, oracle pricing, and on-chain custody are reusable infrastructure. Anyone can launch their own perp market on top of it — choosing its collateral, markets, and parameters.
• The live Elysia Perps exchange is the reference implementation — the first, fully built venue on this module. It proves the engine end-to-end and serves as the template for anyone building on it.

This is why the docs emphasize the engine and not just "an exchange": the trading experience you see is one instance, and the same machinery can power many.

Where to go next

• New here? Start with Getting Started → Connect & Login.
• Want to understand the collateral model and the markets it enables? See Quanto Markets.
• Ready to trade? Jump to Trading → Order Types.