How Verus works

Verus is a perp aggregator: it sits between you and several perpetual-futures venues. You enter the position you want, and Verus decides where it executes for the lowest total cost. You keep custody of your funds the entire time.

Your account

When you sign up, Verus creates an embedded account for you on Arbitrum, and creates perp DEX accounts on the supported venues automatically. This account:

• Holds your USDC (your trading capital). You do not need to hold ETH: gas is paid in USDC through a paymaster (see Deposits & withdrawals).
• Is controlled by your login. Only you can authorize what it signs.
• Is non-custodial: Verus cannot move your funds to an address you did not approve. See Security for the guardrails.

For the full mechanics of signing, permissions, and execution, see Under the hood.

Automatic routing

A perpetual-futures venue is an exchange where you trade perps. Verus routes across five, spanning central limit order books (CLOBs) and pool-based perps:

• Hyperliquid (order book)
• Lighter (order book)
• Orderly (order book)
• GMX (pool-based perp)
• Ostium (pool-based perp, real-world assets and crypto)

You do not pick a venue per trade: routing across your enabled venues is automatic. When you open a trade, Verus models the full cost of that exact trade on each eligible venue and sends it to the cheapest one. If a venue cannot support your trade (for example, your leverage is above that venue’s cap), it is excluded from routing.

Routing is also balance-aware. A venue that your account cannot fund for this particular trade is demoted in the comparison rather than hidden, so you can still see what it would have cost.

You can turn individual venues off for your account under Account -> Venues. A venue you disable is removed from routing and receives no new deposits. Disabling it never blocks you from closing a position you already have there or from withdrawing funds that are still sitting there.

See Best execution for the cost model, and Venues for the venue list.

Where your collateral sits

With Verus you never make a separate deposit to a venue. Only the collateral for a given trade is moved to the venue that wins the route, and it returns to your account when you close.

Collateral is not locked in place while a position is open: you can add margin to the position or take margin back out at any time, straight from the position row.

This holds however the position ends. If a take-profit or stop-loss fires at the venue while you are away, the position closes there and the freed funds are withdrawn back to your account automatically, without you having to do anything. (An amount below the venue’s withdrawal minimum, or funds still backing another position at that venue, waits there until it can be withdrawn. It stays yours and is visible in the app.)

So your funds sit in your own account whenever you are not in a trade.

Isolated margin

Every position uses isolated margin. Only the collateral backing a trade is sent to the venue, and that collateral is ring-fenced. If a position is liquidated, the loss is capped at that position’s margin and cannot reach your other positions or the rest of your funds.

Isolated does not mean fixed: you can add margin to an open position at any time to move its liquidation price further away, or remove margin you no longer need. See Placing a trade.

A note on latency

Because collateral is moved to a venue as part of routing, opening a position on a venue that needs funding adds some deposit latency in v1. Verus v2 is already being designed to remove deposit latency entirely.

Putting it together

1. You fund your account with Arbitrum USDC. Gas is paid in USDC via a paymaster, so no ETH is needed.
2. You enter a position. Verus routes it to the cheapest eligible venue and moves the collateral there.
3. You close the position. Collateral and PnL return to your account.
4. You withdraw to an external address whenever you like.

Next: Best execution explains how the cheapest venue is chosen, and Placing a trade walks through the order flow.