Autodeleveraging: Impossibilities and Optimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteur principal: Chitra, Tarun
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Chitra, Tarun
author_facet Chitra, Tarun
contents Autodeleveraging (ADL) is a last-resort loss socialization mechanism for perpetual futures venues. It is triggered when solvency-preserving liquidations fail. Despite the dominance of perpetual futures in the crypto derivatives market, with over \$60 trillion of volume in 2024, there has been no formal study of ADL. In this paper, we provide the first rigorous model of ADL. We prove that ADL mechanisms face a fundamental \emph{trilemma}: no policy can simultaneously satisfy exchange \emph{solvency}, \emph{revenue}, and \emph{fairness} to traders. This impossibility theorem implies that as participation scales, a novel form of \emph{moral hazard} grows asymptotically, rendering `zero-loss' socialization impossible. On the positive side, we show that three classes of ADL mechanisms can optimally navigate this trilemma to provide fairness, robustness to price shocks, and maximal exchange revenue. We analyze these mechanisms on the Hyperliquid dataset from October 10, 2025, when ADL was used repeatedly to close \$2.1 billion of positions in 12 minutes. By comparing production ADL to transparent benchmark allocations, we find that Hyperliquid's production algorithm overshot the minimum trader profit haircut required to cover the shortfall. Our methodology suggests the excess profits lost by profitable traders is between \$45.0M and \$51.7M. In terms of the positions liquidated, this corresponds to roughly \$653.6M of positions being closed. This comparison also suggests that Binance overutilized ADL far more than Hyperliquid. Our results show both theoretically and empirically that optimized ADL mechanisms can dramatically reduce losses of trader profitability while maintaining exchange solvency.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_01112
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Autodeleveraging: Impossibilities and Optimization
Chitra, Tarun
Computer Science and Game Theory
Risk Management
Trading and Market Microstructure
Autodeleveraging (ADL) is a last-resort loss socialization mechanism for perpetual futures venues. It is triggered when solvency-preserving liquidations fail. Despite the dominance of perpetual futures in the crypto derivatives market, with over \$60 trillion of volume in 2024, there has been no formal study of ADL. In this paper, we provide the first rigorous model of ADL. We prove that ADL mechanisms face a fundamental \emph{trilemma}: no policy can simultaneously satisfy exchange \emph{solvency}, \emph{revenue}, and \emph{fairness} to traders. This impossibility theorem implies that as participation scales, a novel form of \emph{moral hazard} grows asymptotically, rendering `zero-loss' socialization impossible. On the positive side, we show that three classes of ADL mechanisms can optimally navigate this trilemma to provide fairness, robustness to price shocks, and maximal exchange revenue. We analyze these mechanisms on the Hyperliquid dataset from October 10, 2025, when ADL was used repeatedly to close \$2.1 billion of positions in 12 minutes. By comparing production ADL to transparent benchmark allocations, we find that Hyperliquid's production algorithm overshot the minimum trader profit haircut required to cover the shortfall. Our methodology suggests the excess profits lost by profitable traders is between \$45.0M and \$51.7M. In terms of the positions liquidated, this corresponds to roughly \$653.6M of positions being closed. This comparison also suggests that Binance overutilized ADL far more than Hyperliquid. Our results show both theoretically and empirically that optimized ADL mechanisms can dramatically reduce losses of trader profitability while maintaining exchange solvency.
title Autodeleveraging: Impossibilities and Optimization
topic Computer Science and Game Theory
Risk Management
Trading and Market Microstructure
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.01112