A practical guide to non-custodial leverage on Arbitrum
How Atomic settles 20× leveraged positions without ever touching user funds. We walk through the position lifecycle, the liquidation engine, and why every trade is a single signed transaction from your wallet.
What "non-custodial" actually means
Custody is the right to move someone else's assets. A centralized exchange has it the moment you deposit; a perp DEX with a margin contract has it the moment you fund the contract. Atomic was designed so that at no point in a position's lifecycle does the protocol hold your collateral.
If a protocol takes custody, its security model becomes "trust the multisig." Self-custody moves the trust boundary back to your own signature.
The position lifecycle, end to end
A leveraged trade on Atomic is one signed transaction. The frontend builds a route, the user signs once, and Atomic.sol settles atomically.
Leverage cuts both ways. A 10× long is liquidated on a ~9% adverse move.
Closing thoughts
The point of self-custody isn't ideological - it's that a protocol should be able to fail without taking your money with it.