TL;DR:
- Phoenix Trade integrated SOL as collateral to back margin positions across more than 80 perpetual markets.
- The initial margin weight for SOL was set at 80%, while USDC maintains a 100% weight.
- The protocol has accumulated over $2.834 billion in cumulative derivatives volume and more than $75 billion on its original spot order book.
This Wednesday, September 16, Phoenix Trade, developed by Ellipsis Labs on the Solana network, enabled the use of SOL as direct collateral to trade perpetual contracts.
SOL is live as collateral on Phoenix.
Deposit SOL and use it to back perpetual positions directly across crypto, equities, and commodities. No USDC required.
Hold SOL. Trade anything.https://t.co/qRsYg47iaP pic.twitter.com/mEFd4tjEAZ
— Phoenix (@PhoenixTrade) September 16, 2026
Prior to this deployment, traders using the platform were required to liquidate or swap their SOL holdings for stablecoins such as USDC to open derivatives positions. With this technical update, the native token remains in user margin accounts to back trades across crypto assets, commodities, and tokenized equities.
Official disclosures indicate that the risk engine assigns an 80% collateral weight to SOL deposits, compared to the 100% retained by USDC. According to the technical team’s report, this haircut is designed to absorb the token’s intrinsic volatility without compromising the solvency of the on-chain order book.
Profit and loss settlement remains denominated in USDC. According to platform documentation, if an account breaches the minimum maintenance margin requirement, the automated liquidation system first reduces the size of open positions and only liquidates the fraction of SOL strictly necessary to cover the deficit.
Technical Parameters and Multi-Collateral Architecture
This step marks the formal launch of a multi-collateral architecture within the protocol. Each newly integrated asset will feature an independent oracle, differentiated collateral weights, and dynamic liquidation parameters.
Since its technical debut in 2023 with a spot order book that processed over $75 billion, Ellipsis Labs has aimed to compete with centralized exchanges via non-custodial infrastructure. DefiLlama data places Phoenix Trade’s cumulative perpetual volume at $2.834 billion, with over $37 million traded over the past 24 hours and open interest standing at $10.19 million.
The technical brief released by the firm highlights that traders can execute basis trading strategies or maintain long spot exposure to SOL while deploying that same capital as margin. The firm expects this mechanism to improve capital efficiency across the Solana DeFi ecosystem.
Market analysts surveyed by industry outlets suggest that supporting volatile collateral could drive higher daily trading volumes in the short term. However, they caution that sharp declines in SOL’s market price could trigger more frequent automated liquidations for highly leveraged accounts.
The protocol does not offer services to users located in the United States or in jurisdictions with regulatory restrictions on decentralized derivatives. The platform confirmed that onboarding additional assets under this multi-collateral framework remains subject to verifiable community demand and the technical resilience of connected oracles.
Ellipsis Labs is scheduled to publish performance and collateral skew metrics for the risk engine at the end of the current operating quarter.
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