GMX (GMX) is a decentralized perpetual futures and spot trading protocol, natively deployed on Arbitrum (One) since September 2021 and also on Avalanche C-Chain since early 2022. Its trading venue has since expanded to MegaETH, Botanix, and Solana, though the GMX token itself exists only as contracts on Arbitrum and Avalanche.
GMX lets traders open leveraged perpetual positions against pooled multi-asset liquidity (GLP/GM pools) rather than an order book, and offers synthetic markets including gold (XAU/USD) and silver (XAG/USD) perpetuals settled on-chain.
GMX differentiates itself from order-book perpetual exchanges by using pooled multi-asset liquidity (GLP/GM), priced via oracles, letting traders execute leveraged positions with reduced slippage and no direct counterparty.
Protocol total value locked reached $208.68M as of 2026-09-02, up 19.2% over the trailing 30 days, with Arbitrum holding about 94.8% of that TVL. GMX launched without venture capital funding, growing through trading fees distributed to stakers rather than external investment.
GMX combines governance and utility functions. Holders can stake GMX to earn a share of platform trading fees, escrowed GMX (esGMX) rewards, and multiplier points that boost future rewards.
Staked GMX also confers voting rights on GMX DAO governance proposals submitted through the project's governance forum. The token itself is not used as trading collateral; collateral and liquidity provision instead run through the separate GLP/GM pool tokens.
As of 2026-09-02, GMX has a circulating supply of approximately 10.46 million tokens, a total supply of approximately 10.99 million, and a market capitalization of roughly $74M.
Net emission carries a medium inflation classification, driven mainly by escrowed GMX (esGMX) staking rewards that convert into liquid, circulating GMX as stakers claim vested rewards over time.
GMX launched via a fair-launch token migration rather than an ICO or VC round. In September 2021, holders of predecessor tokens XVIX, Gambit (GMT), XLGE, and xGMT — originally a BNB Chain project — had their tokens and liquidity migrated into GMX at the protocol's Arbitrum launch, with 6 million GMX allocated to this migration.
The GMX token contract on Arbitrum was deployed on 2021-07-22, ahead of the September 2021 public launch. The protocol expanded to Avalanche C-Chain in early 2022.
GMX is deployed on Arbitrum (One), an Ethereum optimistic-rollup layer 2 that inherits Ethereum's proof-of-stake security through fraud-proof settlement, and on Avalanche C-Chain, secured by Avalanche's own proof-of-stake consensus protocol.
The protocol's trading venue has further expanded to MegaETH, Botanix, and Solana, though the GMX token itself exists only as contracts on Arbitrum and Avalanche. GMX does not run its own blockchain or validator set; it relies entirely on the security and consensus of these underlying chains.
GMX's founding and core development team is anonymous.
Krunal Amin (founder of UniDex) and Benjamin Simon (co-founder of Stealth Crypto) are reported to hold signing authority on a GMX-linked multisig wallet, though neither is confirmed as a GMX founder. An account known as "@xdev_10" is widely believed by secondary sources to be a lead or core developer, but this attribution remains unverified and pseudonymous.
GMX has no single named issuing company or legal entity; it operates as an open-source protocol maintained by its anonymous core team together with GMX DAO.
The project emerged from a September 2021 merger of the XVIX and Gambit Exchange communities, with Gambit having originated as a decentralized exchange on BNB Chain before relaunching on Arbitrum. Its public code repository is listed under the GitHub organization "xvi10/gambit-contracts," consistent with this lineage.
GMX is governed by GMX DAO, through which GMX token holders propose and vote on protocol changes via a dedicated governance forum. Governance is not fully decentralized: the anonymous core team retains significant influence, and commentators describe the DAO as gradually shifting more decision-making to token holders over time.
In a reported treasury action, GMX DAO reacquired 25,630 GMX tokens for approximately $150,000, at an average price of about $5.85, between 2026-06-17 and 2026-06-23.
GMX's V2.2 upgrade introduces gasless transactions via signed messages and keeper networks such as Gelato, funded by a network-fee subsidy pool drawn from trading fees. A longer-dated V2.3 roadmap, targeted for 2026-2027, adds cross-margin support (shared collateral across positions), market aggregation, and cross-collateral pools accepting assets like USDC.
GMX has already expanded its market offerings to synthetic commodity perpetuals, including 24/7 XAU/USD (gold) and XAG/USD (silver) trading settled on-chain through WETH-USDC GM liquidity pools.
GMX underwent a pre-launch audit by ABDK Consulting. Its V2 Synthetics architecture received 8 separate audit engagements between October 2022 and September 2023, totaling 88 person-weeks and addressing 365 findings, including a pre-deployment audit by Quantstamp covering reentrancy and access-control risks.
A $1M bug bounty was paid in 2022 for a global short-position pricing vulnerability. On 2025-07-09, GMX V1's Arbitrum pool was exploited via reentrancy for over $42M; the attacker returned most funds within 48 hours for a $5M bounty. Top-10 addresses hold 81% of token supply, likely reflecting staking and vesting contracts rather than pure whale ownership.