⚠︎ Risk warning: leveraged derivatives on unregulated platforms — you can lose everything you deposit. Not investment advice.
The GMX Screen, Explained
Definitions re-verified against GMX's official docs on 2026-10-08. Screenshots are from our own account, taken 2026-07-23 — the numbers in them were live then and will differ now, and the market list and settings have changed in places since (noted below).
GMX looks like the order-book venues at a glance, but under the hood it works differently enough that a newbie should understand the model before clicking anything: there's no order book. You trade against shared liquidity pools, an oracle sets your price, and a keeper executes your order in a second transaction. This page walks the interface control by control, using screenshots from our own account. New to GMX? Start with the how-to-start guide; new to perps, read the perpetuals explainer first. We did the same tour for Hyperliquid and dYdX if you want to compare the models.
The Trade Screen at a Glance
The layout: a market header across the top, the chart in the middle, and the order panel on the right. Because there's no order book, GMX gives that space to the trade box's pool and collateral controls instead — the settings that actually shape a GMX position.
Long, Short, Swap
Three tabs: Long and Short open leveraged perp positions; Swap does a plain spot token swap. Worth knowing per the docs: "GM pools provide the native swap routes" — the same liquidity that backs perps — so the swappable tokens include the collateral tokens across active pools. For an eligible market swap the interface can pick a KyberSwap route instead, when no GM-pool route exists or the external one returns more, and the execution details show which route was chosen before you confirm. Either way it's a genuine spot swap, not a perp.
The Two Selectors That Make GMX Different: Pool and Collateral
This is the part the order-book venues on this site don't have, and the part newbies most need to understand. GMX V2 lets you choose which pool your trade uses and which token holds your collateral, and both choices have real consequences the docs spell out:
- Pool — a market can have more than one pool (e.g. BTC-USDC and BTC-USDT). Per the docs, each pool "may have different funding/borrowing rates and price impact levels depending on its balance," so the pool you pick changes your running costs.
- Collateral — you choose which token backs the position, and this changes your exposure. The docs' own example: a long ETH position with ETH collateral gains exposure "from both the long position and the collateral itself"; the same long with USDC collateral has exposure that "comes only from the long position." Use non-stablecoin collateral and "your liquidation price may change as the collateral's price fluctuates." For a first trade, stablecoin collateral keeps the mental model simple — your risk is just the position.
Margin, Size, and Leverage
The trade box has three linked fields, per the docs: Margin (what you deposit), Size (the total position, toggleable between USD and token units), and Leverage (the "2×" control at the top — click it for a slider and manual input). They're interconnected: with manual leverage on (the default), you set leverage plus one field and GMX computes the third — the docs' example, "10x leverage and 100 USDC margin gives a 1,000 USD position size." The percentage slider (0–100%) below then adjusts margin as a share of your maximum available amount. Start with low leverage and a small margin; the slider makes it easy to accidentally commit everything.
Order Types: Market, Limit, and "More"
Order-entry tabs are Market, Limit, and More. Per the docs:
- Market — executes at the current oracle price, within the slippage you allow; a market order still unexecuted about six minutes after creation may be cancelled automatically.
- Limit — you set a trigger price; when the oracle price reaches it, a keeper opens the position at that oracle price.
- Stop Market (under More) — opens or increases a position when the oracle price hits your stop; longs and shorts only, not swaps.
- TWAP (under More) — splits an order into evenly-timed parts (2–30, default 5, over a default 10 hours) to spread a large trade over time.
Take-Profit / Stop-Loss is the toggle in the trade box (not a "More" entry) — set a TP price to lock gains and an SL price to cap losses. The docs' own warning is worth repeating: "A Stop-Loss is a trigger order, not a guaranteed exit before liquidation" — in a fast move, liquidation can beat it.
One thing the market list shows off: GMX isn't just crypto. In our July screenshot the TradFi tab listed gold, silver, oil, and natural-gas perps; GMX's TradFi page now also lists Brent crude and three US equity markets (SPCX, SPY and QQQ), all trading 24/7. Leverage caps vary by market and by session. In "on-hours" (the CME Globex session for the commodities, a 09:45–15:45 New York window for the equity markets) gold, silver and both oils go to 100x, natural gas 40x, SPY and QQQ 50x; off-hours those drop to 25x, 20x and 25x, and SPCX stays at 10x throughout. For gold, silver and the oils the liquidation factor also rises from 0.5% to 0.8% off-hours, so a position's liquidation price can move when the session switches, with no action on your part — check the cap for the session you'll be holding through.
The Header: Net Rate, and Why There Are Two Prices Behind the Scene
The displayed price is the mark price — per the docs, the midpoint of the oracle's price spread, used for charts and funding. The header also shows 24h Volume, Open Interest with a long/short split (the "52%/48%" you see is how balanced the two sides are), Available Liquidity, and Net Rate / 1h.
Net Rate deserves care. GMX charges two separate ongoing costs — a borrowing fee (paid by the side with larger open interest) and a funding fee (paid by the dominant side to the other) — and the Net Rate is the combined figure GMX shows per side, chartable here alongside the borrowing and funding rates on their own tabs. We're describing it as a combined rate rather than giving a formula, because GMX's docs name the field but don't publish the exact combination. The practical takeaway: a negative net rate on your side means holding costs you per hour; a positive one means you're paid — and it accrues the whole time the position is open. Our GMX fees page breaks down the components.
Execution Details, Price Impact, and the Keeper
The Execution details section previews liquidation price, fees, network fee, collateral spread, allowed slippage, and stored price impact before you submit. Two GMX-specific mechanics hide here:
Price impact works backwards from what you'd expect. Per the docs, opening a position incurs no price impact at entry — the entry price is just the oracle price. Impact is calculated from how your trade shifts the pool's long/short imbalance and is "only applied (charged or credited) when you close or decrease a position — hence the name 'net price impact.'" Balancing the pool can even credit you; imbalancing it charges you.
Every trade is two transactions. The docs: "Every trade on GMX involves two transactions: your request and the keeper's execution." You send a request; a keeper observes it and executes it in a separate transaction a moment later, at the oracle price. The network fee covers that keeper's gas, and unused gas is refunded. This two-phase design exists to prevent front-running — but it's why a GMX order isn't instant the way a CEX click is, and why you'll see a brief "pending execution" step. Nothing is wrong; that's the model.
Trading Modes: Classic, Express, One-Click
The settings gear offers three modes: Classic (sign every transaction in your wallet, gas paid in ETH on Arbitrum), Express (you sign a message locally and GMX's own relay submits it on-chain; the fee comes out of a gas payment token you choose, such as USDC, USDT or WETH on Arbitrum, so you don't need to hold ETH for it), and Express + One-Click (trades are signed automatically by a sub-account key stored in your browser, with no popup each time). The docs recommend either Express mode and say trading fees are the same in all three. One-Click is convenient and bounded — you authorize a set number of actions, and a popup returns once they're used up — and, per the docs, funds from decreasing or closing positions, or from swaps, can only be sent back to your wallet. The trade-off is that browser-stored key: if the browser is compromised, it could be used to trade up to the limit you authorized. The settings panel in our July screenshot described Express as using "premium RPCs"; the docs now describe GMX Relay, GMX's self-hosted relay. Our how-to-start guide covers when each mode makes sense and the smart-wallet caveat.
Earn: GMX, GM, and GLV
GMX's Earn page explains its own three-part structure cleanly, and it maps to how you'd earn on GMX. GMX is the governance token. Per the docs, 27% of protocol fees buy back GMX on the open market for stakers, but "GMX staking rewards are suspended": the bought-back GMX accumulates in the treasury, and the docs say it will be distributed when GMX reaches $90. Until then, staking accrues staking power (your share of that future distribution) rather than paying anything out, and if your staked balance drops below 80% of its peak, the accumulated power resets to zero. We don't forecast the token price, so treat the distribution date as unknown. GM tokens are shares in a single market's liquidity pool — you become that market's counterparty and earn its fees (liquidity providers get 63% of trading, liquidation, borrow and swap fees on Arbitrum and Avalanche, per the docs), risk-isolated to that one market. GLV is a vault holding multiple GM tokens, auto-rebalanced across markets for a more diversified, passive version. The screenshot shows live APYs (GM at 115% on Arbitrum here) — but remember the engine: GM/GLV depositors are the house, so those yields are realized results of taking the other side of trades, exactly as our earning guide frames vault income. They are not a fixed rate.
Third-Party "Additional Opportunities"
GMX also surfaces third-party protocols (Dolomite, Umami and others) built on top of GM/GLV tokens — lending, looping, delta-neutral vaults. These aren't GMX itself; they're separate protocols with their own smart-contract risk, layered on top of GMX's. Useful to know they exist, but each is its own due-diligence exercise, and layering protocols multiplies the ways a position can fail.
The Leaderboard
The Leaderboard ranks GMX V2 traders by profit. It's genuinely worth a look for a sobering reason: notice the win/loss columns and the leverage. The eye-catching returns often come with high leverage and plenty of losing trades mixed in — and for every headline number here, the losing side isn't shown. Read it as a reminder of variance, not a strategy to copy.
One Honesty Note: "V1 Interface"
You may spot a "V1 interface" link in the footer. Don't mistake it for an alternate place to trade. Per GMX's own docs, "Trading on V1 has been phased out since July 2025" — the V1 site exists only so users can close pre-existing V1 positions. Everything this page describes is GMX V2, the live product; V1 is a wind-down path, not a choice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does my GMX order take a moment to execute?
Because every GMX trade is two transactions: your request, then a keeper's execution at the oracle price a moment later. It's by design — the delay is what prevents front-running — and the network fee covers the keeper's gas, with any unused portion refunded.
Does it matter which collateral token I pick?
Yes. Stablecoin collateral means your risk is just the position. Volatile collateral (like ETH backing a long ETH position) adds the collateral's own price swings to your exposure and moves your liquidation price as it fluctuates. For a first trade, stablecoin collateral is the simpler choice.
Is the yield on GM/GLV pools guaranteed?
No. GM and GLV depositors are the counterparty to traders — the displayed APY is the realized result of that flow (trading fees minus trader winnings), plus smart-contract risk. When traders win, the pool loses. See our earning guide.
This page contains affiliate links. Screenshots are of our own account and carry no compensation from GMX; values shown were live on the capture date and change constantly. See our methodology.