Can decentralized exchanges offer the same trading experience as centralized platforms without building everything from scratch?

That question has plagued DeFi protocols attempting to expand into derivatives markets, where development complexity and liquidity fragmentation create substantial barriers to entry.

Orbs has positioned itself as a solution to this challenge. The company announced on January 8, 2026, that Atlantis integrated Perpetual Hub Ultra to bring perpetual futures trading to Monad. Rather than spending months developing custom infrastructure, Atlantis deployed a complete derivatives trading stack through a modular framework that handles hedging, liquidation, oracles, and trading interfaces.

Understanding the Infrastructure Layer

Perpetual Hub Ultra operates as a scalable perpetuals protocol that functions through a modular integration layer. Think of it as a pre-built trading engine that decentralized exchanges can plug into their platforms rather than constructing one from the ground up. This approach addresses a persistent problem in DeFi: exchanges either spend significant resources building proprietary systems or rely on limited liquidity sources that cannot match centralized exchange depth.

The protocol aggregates liquidity from multiple sources, both onchain and offchain, including major centralized exchanges, while maintaining decentralized settlement and execution. Perpetual futures are derivative contracts that allow traders to speculate on asset prices without expiration dates, unlike traditional futures contracts. They use funding rates to keep contract prices aligned with spot market prices. For DeFi platforms, offering these products traditionally required building complex liquidation mechanisms, oracle systems, and order matching engines.

Orbs operates as a Layer-3 blockchain secured by permissionless validators using delegated proof-of-stake consensus. A Layer-3 blockchain sits above standard smart contract platforms, providing additional execution capabilities and logic processing beyond what base layer blockchains can efficiently handle. This architecture enables protocols to execute complex trading operations that would be too computationally expensive or slow on traditional Layer-1 or Layer-2 networks.

The Atlantis Integration Mechanics

Atlantis built its platform around a modular V4 architecture that supports plugin-based functionality. This design philosophy allows the exchange to add new capabilities without migrating existing contracts or disrupting current users. The Perpetual Hub Ultra integration follows this model, connecting to Atlantis' existing infrastructure through standardized interfaces.

Users accessing perpetuals on Atlantis gain exposure to aggregated liquidity pools, customizable leverage options, and execution quality comparable to centralized venues. The platform maintains flexibility to adjust its trading offerings as the Monad ecosystem develops, adding or modifying features without rebuilding core systems.

Ran Hammer, head of ecosystem at Orbs, explains,

This integration shows how advanced onchain derivatives can be deployed quickly and efficiently without sacrificing decentralization. By powering perpetuals on Atlantis through Perpetual Hub Ultra, Orbs is enabling teams on Monad to offer professional-grade derivatives trading using a modular, turnkey infrastructure.

The deployment represents an evolution from Orbs' earlier Perpetual Hub implementations, which are already operational across multiple decentralized trading venues. The Ultra version extends these capabilities by routing liquidity from both onchain and offchain sources while maintaining decentralized settlement.

Intent-Based Trading and Market Evolution

Perpetual Hub Ultra incorporates intent-based execution models that have gained adoption in spot markets. Intent-based trading allows users to specify desired outcomes rather than exact execution paths. For example, a trader might express intent to open a leveraged position at a specific price point, and the system determines the optimal route to achieve that outcome across available liquidity sources.

This approach contrasts with traditional order book models where users must manually navigate liquidity fragmentation and execute trades through specific venues. Intent-based systems abstract this complexity, routing orders to achieve best execution while users interact with simplified interfaces.

The integration positions Atlantis as a comprehensive DeFi hub on Monad, combining spot trading, perpetual futures, cross-chain functionality, and other services through a unified platform. Atlantis also incorporates AI-driven fee optimization and leverages Monad's high-performance execution environment to reduce transaction costs.

Final Thoughts

The modular infrastructure approach that Orbs offers addresses a legitimate market gap in DeFi. Exchanges attempting to expand into derivatives face substantial development overhead and ongoing maintenance costs for complex systems. Perpetual Hub Ultra provides an alternative path that reduces time to market and allows teams to focus resources on user acquisition and interface design rather than backend engineering.

However, this model introduces dependencies on external infrastructure providers. While Orbs operates through decentralized validators, exchanges using Perpetual Hub Ultra rely on Orbs' continued operation and development. This tradeoff between development efficiency and infrastructure independence will likely shape how DeFi protocols evaluate build versus integrate decisions. The integration demonstrates that competitive derivatives trading can exist onchain without sacrificing decentralization, assuming the underlying Layer-3 infrastructure maintains security and performance standards that match user expectations.

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