> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.intention.xyz/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# FAQ

> Frequently asked questions about Intention the L1 and Intention Exchange the flagship perpetual futures DEX — what they are, what you can trade, how custody works, and how to participate.

This page collapses every answer behind a clickable header. Open the question you need; the rest stay tucked. The first answer is open by default because it sets the vocabulary the rest of the FAQ depends on.

## About Intention and Intention Exchange

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What is Intention? What is Intention Exchange? How are they related?" defaultOpen>
    Two related but distinct things, and the team uses both names precisely.

    **Intention** is the Layer 1 protocol — the chain itself. It is built on a deterministic state-transition kernel called [IntentionKernel](/protocol/architecture/kernel) and a Byzantine-fault-tolerant consensus called [IntentionBFT](/protocol/architecture/intention-bft). Matching, risk, clearing, and pricing all live inside the protocol as native state machines. There is no general-purpose VM. The L1 is designed to host any serious financial workload that fits its closed-world instruction set: perpetual futures, spot markets, tokenized real-world assets, autonomous agent strategies.

    **Intention Exchange** is the flagship perpetual futures DEX running on the Intention L1. It is the first application to use the protocol's guarantees in production. It does not implement its own matching engine, risk pipeline, or pricing logic — it inherits all three from IntentionKernel by virtue of running on it.

    When in doubt: **name the protocol when you are talking about architecture, name the exchange when you are talking about the trading product.**
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What can I trade on Intention Exchange?">
    USDC-margined perpetual futures on crypto majors, mid-caps, and long-tail assets, plus pre-market contracts for newly launched tokens. Each market has a deterministic on-chain specification with its own tick size, lot size, leverage tiers, and liquidity profile. The full list of currently listed contracts and their parameters can be fetched from the chain at any time. See [Markets and contract specs](/trading/markets) for the format.

    Other order-book markets run on the same substrate without changing the execution model — spot markets, and perpetuals referencing tokenized real-world assets such as equities, indices, and commodities. The protocol does not distinguish an RWA perpetual from a crypto one; a market can list once its reference index is defined. See [Asset classes](/trading/markets) for the shape of that surface. The currently listed set is always published on-chain in the listing record.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Is Intention Exchange for human traders or for AI agents?">
    Both — and the same properties serve both audiences. For human traders and integrators, Intention Exchange is an open, public, professional venue: a perpetual futures DEX with a full central limit order book, professional order types, isolated and cross margin, and protocol-native liquidations — running on a chain that anyone can audit and replay. For autonomous agents, it is something more fundamental: the venue is *legible* — deterministic, attributed, atomic, and finalized inside consensus — so the chain becomes a function the agent can inspect rather than a noisy environment it has to model.

    The same design serves both. Because [execution](/protocol/architecture/kernel) is reproducible, [prices](/protocol/architecture/oracle) are certified in the block that consumes them, [risk](/protocol/architecture/clearinghouse) runs atomically with matching, and every state change is traceable, a human gets a venue whose behavior can be audited and an agent gets one whose behavior can be predicted. The two audiences want the same thing from the substrate. See [AI trading: now and next](/protocol/ai-trading) for the agent side.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Does Intention Exchange take custody of my funds?">
    No. The protocol is non-custodial. Your collateral is held by the protocol's margin system under the control of your account key, not by Intention Labs and not by Intention Exchange. You can withdraw at any time, subject to position health — you cannot withdraw collateral that is supporting an open position past the maintenance margin requirement.

    Intention Exchange is the user interface; the funds live on the L1. If Intention Exchange's frontend went offline tomorrow, your position and your collateral would remain on the chain, and any other client speaking to the L1 could read or act on them.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How is Intention different from other on-chain perpetual DEXs?">
    Most on-chain perpetual DEXs are application-style trading engines deployed on top of a general-purpose blockchain. Matching, risk, mark pricing, liquidations, and oracle integration are all application code. The chain underneath them does not know what a perpetual contract is, and the application has to enforce every fairness property by itself, against an environment where the chain's own behavior — block-producer reordering, oracle latency, keeper races, indexer drift — keeps undermining it.

    Intention takes a different path. The L1 *is* the trading engine. Matching, risk, clearing, and pricing live inside the deterministic kernel as protocol-native state machines. Mark prices are signed by the same validator quorum that signs the trade ([in-consensus pricing](/protocol/architecture/oracle)). Liquidations execute atomically with the matching they were triggered by ([protocol-native risk](/protocol/architecture/clearinghouse)). [Per-transaction attribution](/protocol/architecture/state/model) is a protocol output, not an indexer reconstruction. Intention Exchange inherits all of those guarantees by running on the L1; it does not reimplement them.

    The practical result is that the venue's correctness is enforced by the protocol below it, not by application code. The trade-off is a smaller attack surface and stronger guarantees in exchange for less flexibility — Intention does not host arbitrary user contracts.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can other applications run on Intention besides Intention Exchange?">
    Yes. The L1 is designed as financial infrastructure that any serious workload can build on, not as a single-app chain. Future applications that fit the closed-world instruction set — spot markets, tokenized real-world assets, structured products, autonomous agent strategy environments — will run on the same substrate and inherit the same protocol-native guarantees that Intention Exchange does today.

    What the L1 cannot host is arbitrary smart contracts. Every operation the protocol can perform is part of the kernel's enumerated instruction set, and adding new operations is a protocol upgrade rather than a contract deployment. That is a deliberate trade-off in favor of correctness over flexibility — see [IntentionKernel](/protocol/architecture/kernel) for the rationale.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Protocol

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Is Intention an EVM chain?">
    No. Intention is not an EVM chain and does not run smart contracts in a general-purpose virtual machine. Its execution layer is the [IntentionKernel](/protocol/architecture/kernel), a deterministic state-transition kernel whose instruction set is the enumerated set of typed financial primitives — order placement, cancel, match, mark, liquidate, fund, settle, transfer. Closed-world by design. New financial primitives arrive through protocol upgrades, not through user-deployed contracts. The reasoning is documented in [Architecture overview](/protocol/architecture/overview) and in the project whitepaper (available on request from `contact@intention.xyz`).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Is there a token?">
    Not yet. Intention does not currently have a native token. There has been no token sale, no airdrop, and no token-related public claim from the team. Documentation does not describe tokenomics, staking incentives, fee discounts, or governance weight associated with any token. If and when a token is launched, this answer will be updated. Be skeptical of any third party claiming otherwise.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Where is the testnet?">
    The testnet is running at [trade.intention-testnet.xyz](https://trade.intention-testnet.xyz), with a faucet at [faucet.intention-testnet.xyz](https://faucet.intention-testnet.xyz) and an explorer at [scan.intention-testnet.xyz](https://scan.intention-testnet.xyz). See [What is Intention](/help/what-is-intention) for what testnet means for your balances, and [The network today](/protocol/architecture/network-status) for endpoints and chain identity.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I run a validator?">
    Not currently. The validator set is run by Intention Labs and invited partners, and joining is by approval rather than registration — there is no public join flow. Participation opens in stages alongside the public testnet and mainnet. To ask about operating a node, email `contact@intention.xyz` with **Node operator** in the subject line; see [Run a node](/developers/run-a-node).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Project

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="How do I report a bug or vulnerability?">
    For protocol-level vulnerabilities, follow the disclosure process in [Bug bounty](/protocol/security/bug-bounty). Do not post live exploits in public channels. For non-security bugs in the documentation or in Intention Exchange, email `contact@intention.xyz` with reproduction steps and the relevant URL.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Where is the whitepaper?">
    The Intention whitepaper documents the architectural rationale, the consensus design, and the trading engine semantics referenced throughout this site. It is available on request — email `contact@intention.xyz` and ask for the current revision.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Is Intention open source?">
    No. The implementation of Intention is closed-source. The protocol's external behavior — its guarantees, integration surfaces, and operational semantics — is documented in this site and in the project whitepaper, and that is the canonical surface area third parties build against. Closing the source is a deliberate choice for the current stage of the project; the team is focused on shipping a correct and performant venue rather than on open-source ecosystem development. Whether and when this position changes will be announced through `intention.xyz`.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Where can I follow updates?">
    Announcements are published from `intention.xyz` and on Twitter / X at `@intention`. There is no official Telegram, Discord, or other community channel run by Intention Labs at the time of writing — be cautious of imitators.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Who do I contact for partnerships or press?">
    `contact@intention.xyz`. See [Intention Labs](/about/intention-labs).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>