Overview
Atomic's cost structure is intentionally flat. Every trade pays the same percentage; there is no maker/taker spread, no overnight cost, no oracle fee.
10 bps (0.10%) on open + 10 bps (0.10%) on close = 20 bps round trip. Industry norm on perpetuals is 50–100 bps.
What you pay
| Action | Fee | Charged on |
|---|---|---|
| Open position | 10 bps | Position size (margin × leverage) |
| Close position | 10 bps | Position size at close |
| Liquidation | ~10 bps + keeper bounty | Position size at trigger |
| Set / edit / cancel TP·SL | Free | - |
| Gas | Arbitrum gas | Network - typically a few cents per transaction |
Fees are deducted from your margin in the same transaction that opens or closes the position. The protocol then routes them: a portion to lenders as yield, the rest to protocol revenue.
What you don't pay
- No funding rate. Most perpetuals charge a periodic funding rate to hold open positions. Atomic does not - positions are real on-chain swaps, not synthetic perps.
- No borrow fee. The leverage portion is borrowed from the lending pool, but you don't pay interest on the position itself. The lender's yield comes from the round-trip fee, not from a borrow rate against you.
- No fee for setting risk targets. TP and SL are free to set, edit, and cancel. You only pay the standard close fee if and when one fires.
- No deposit/withdraw fees. There is no deposit. There is no withdrawal. Your wallet is your account.
A liquidation pays the keeper that executes it on top of the standard close fee. If a position is in trouble, closing it yourself - even at a loss - is almost always cheaper than waiting for the keeper.
Worked example
A 10x ETH-USDC.e long, $1,000 margin, $10,000 notional, held until you close at flat PnL:
Open: 10,000 × 0.001 = $10.00 fee Close: 10,000 × 0.001 = $10.00 fee ───────────────────────────────── Total: $20.00 (20 bps of notional) Plus: Arbitrum gas (~$0.05–$0.30 per tx)
The same trade on a 50 bps round-trip perp DEX would cost $50; on a 100 bps one, $100.
Where the fees go
- ~75% to the protocol - fund development, audits, the bounty, ongoing operations.
- ~25% to lenders - paid into the lending pool as part of the APY. See Yield mechanics.
This is the entire revenue model. There is no token printing, no airdrop dilution, and no off-chain revenue extraction. Lenders earn from real trader activity; the protocol earns from the same.
Slippage is not a fee
The order panel shows a max slippage field (default 30 bps). Slippage is the difference between the quoted price and the filled price - it is not paid to Atomic. It is the price impact of your trade against on-chain liquidity, which goes to whoever is on the other side of the swap.
Setting max slippage too tight in a thin market causes the transaction to fail rather than fill at a worse price. Setting it too wide on a large position can cost more than the trading fee itself. On most blue-chip pairs at retail size, 30 bps is fine.