Trading on Intention exposes you to a stack of risks that are different in detail but not in kind from the risks of trading on any other leveraged perpetual venue. This page describes them in plain language. Read it before you trade with size that matters to you. Nothing on this site is investment advice.
Protocol risk
Intention is a new Layer 1. Even though the protocol is being designed for byte-deterministic execution and is verified against a Differential Test Harness, software at this scale carries residual risk: undiscovered bugs in the kernel, in the BFT consensus layer, in the matching engine, or in the validator client. A serious bug could result in stalled blocks, incorrect settlements, or — in the worst case — loss of funds.
Mitigations: protocol-native risk semantics, multiple independent client implementations, an active bug bounty, independent audits, and continuous internal monitoring of the trading engine. None of these eliminate residual risk.
Smart contract and bridge risk
Collateral enters Intention through the protocol bridge. The bridge contracts on external chains hold escrowed assets, and a successful exploit of those contracts — or of the validator-attested message channel — could result in a loss of bridged collateral. Bridge security is the highest-priority area for ongoing internal review and is part of the bug bounty scope.
Bridge-specific failure modes include source-chain reorgs deeper than the configured confirmation depth, signing-key compromise on validators, and bugs in the message-attestation logic. Withdrawals are subject to rate limits to bound the blast radius of a discovered exploit.
Market risk
Perpetual futures are leveraged products. A small adverse move in the underlying can wipe out the collateral on a position. With cross margin, losses on one position can drain collateral that was supporting other positions.
Specific market-risk failure modes:
- Gap risk. If the underlying gaps through your liquidation level — for example during a low-liquidity period or a halt on the spot venues — your loss can exceed the maintenance margin and your bankruptcy price may be reached. Insurance covers some of this; ADL covers the rest.
- Slippage on liquidation. Forced-close orders execute against the live order book and may incur significant slippage in thin markets.
- Funding swings. A position that is funding-positive when you open it can become funding-negative within hours if the basis flips, and the carry cost can be material.
Oracle risk
The mark price is computed inside consensus from a quorum of validator-signed observations of external spot venues, and is then smoothed via the protocol’s mark-price construction. PTA guarantees that the price used to settle a transaction was certified by the same 2f+1 quorum that committed it, but it does not guarantee that the underlying spot venues were themselves accurate. A coordinated manipulation of multiple major spot venues can bleed through into Intention’s mark price despite the smoothing and median rules. The smoothing makes manipulation expensive and slow, but not impossible.
Liquidation cascade risk
In a sharp move, large numbers of positions can hit liquidation in close succession. The protocol handles this in tiers: live order-book liquidation first, then liquidation vault, then insurance fund, then ADL. ADL forcibly closes profitable positions on the opposite side of the trade, with selection determined by unrealized P&L and effective leverage. A profitable position can be partially closed by ADL even if the trader has done nothing wrong. This is not a bug; it is the protocol absorbing systemic loss in a deterministic, auditable way rather than letting an unbounded liability accumulate.
Sequencing and execution risk
Intention’s transaction sequencing gives cancels priority over new placements within the same block, and adds an off-chain delay to non-post-only placements. This bounds front-running but does not eliminate adverse selection. Latency, network conditions, and competition with other traders still affect fill quality.
Regulatory risk
The legal status of permissionless on-chain perpetual futures varies by jurisdiction and is changing. Intention may not be available — or may not be legal to use — in your country, now or in the future. You are responsible for understanding the rules that apply to you. Intention may add jurisdiction-based access controls, listing restrictions, or other compliance measures over time.
Operational risk for you
- Key management. If you lose your account key, you lose access to your collateral. There is no recovery flow.
- Phishing. Verify URLs before connecting wallets and signing sessions; see the security tips in Connect wallet and Mobile.
- Session abuse. A scoped session credential is a real attack surface. Revoke sessions you no longer use.
Do not trade with funds you cannot afford to lose. Leveraged perpetuals can move against you faster than you can react, and the protocol will not pause execution to give you time.
