Crypto Gloss

Tigris Trade

Tigris Trade is a decentralized perpetuals exchange using synthetic oracle-based asset pricing — where traders open positions directly against a global settlement contract backed by governance token stakers rather than an LP pool, with positions settled at the oracle price rather than through liquidity pool slippage.

Overview

Launched on Arbitrum and later Polygon and BNB Chain, Tigris Trade built a perpetuals mechanism closer to Gains Network’s gTrade than GMX’s GLP model. Rather than having LPs provide liquidity that traders trade against, Tigris positions are backed synthetically by the protocol’s governance collateral and settled at Chainlink oracle prices. This eliminates price impact for large positions (trades execute at the oracle price regardless of size) while shifting risk to the governance stakers who back the system.

Synthetic Oracle-Based Trading

Tigris Trade’s core mechanism:

  • No liquidity pool counterparty — trades are not matched against an LP pool; instead, positions are opened as synthetic contracts that settle at oracle price
  • Oracle settlement — when a position closes (voluntarily or by liquidation), PnL is calculated purely from the entry price versus the oracle settlement price at close
  • No price impact — any position size executes at the oracle price (no slippage from AMM curve or order book depth)
  • Backing mechanism — protocol solvency is backed by staked governance assets (originally tigUSD staked by governance participants)

This model enables large-position trading without the slippage common in AMM-based perpetuals — the same advantage that makes Gains Network’s approach appealing for whale-sized trades.

tigUSD: Protocol Stablecoin

Tigris introduced tigUSD, a protocol-native stablecoin:

  • Minting — tigUSD is minted by depositing accepted collateral assets (USDC, other stablecoins)
  • Staking as backing — staked tigUSD backs the protocol’s synthetic position obligations (pays winning traders)
  • Interest yield — tigUSD stakers earn yield from trading fees generated by all open positions
  • Soft peg maintenance — the 1:1 peg to USD is maintained by arbitrage incentives and redemption mechanics

Staked tigUSD stakers are collectively the “house” — they earn fees but absorb losses when traders are collectively profitable.

Governance Token (TIG)

The TIG token:

  • Protocol governance — TIG holders vote on new market additions, fee tier changes, and protocol upgrades
  • Revenue distribution — a portion of protocol fees distributed to TIG stakers
  • Incentive programs — TIG emissions incentivized early trading volume and tigUSD staking during launch phases

Supported Markets

Tigris Trade offers broad market coverage using oracle feeds:

  • Crypto perpetuals — BTC, ETH, SOL, and many altcoins with 2–500× leverage
  • Forex — major FX pairs (EUR/USD, GBP/USD, JPY/USD) using Chainlink FX price feeds
  • Commodities — XAU/USD (gold), XAG/USD (silver), crude oil
  • Indices — S&P 500 and other equity index price feeds (synthetic exposure only)

The oracle-based model makes it easy to add any asset with a reliable Chainlink feed without needing liquidity bootstrapping for each new market.

Multi-Chain Deployment

Tigris deployed on:

  • Arbitrum — primary launch chain, ETH DeFi users
  • Polygon — lower gas costs for retail-sized positions
  • BNB Chain — access to BNB Chain’s large retail DeFi user base

Each chain has independent liquidity and tigUSD pools but shares the same protocol contract design.

Sources

  1. Tigris Trade Documentation — Tigris Trade Team, 2022–2023. Describes the synthetic oracle-based trading mechanism, tigUSD stablecoin design and staking mechanics, TIG governance token distribution, and multi-chain deployment architecture.
  1. “Oracle-Based Perpetuals: Gains Network and Tigris Compared” — Delphi Digital Research, 2023. Compares Gains Network’s gTrade and Tigris Trade’s approaches to synthetic oracle-based perpetuals, analyzing no-price-impact advantages for large trades, backing mechanism differences (DAI vault vs. tigUSD stake), and liquidation risk management.
  1. “DeFi Synthetic Assets: On-Chain Exposure Without Pooled Liquidity” — Messari Research, 2023. Surveys synthetic asset protocols showing how oracle-settled positions provide market access without real underlying liquidity, using Tigris Trade as a case study for the advantages and challenges of synthetic perpetuals versus pool-backed models.
  1. Chainlink Oracle Reliability for Derivatives Settlement — Chainlink Labs, 2022. Documents oracle feed update frequency, deviation thresholds, source aggregation methodology, and historical uptime statistics relevant to protocols like Tigris Trade that use Chainlink as their sole settlement price reference.
  1. Tigris Trade Governance Forum and Multi-Chain Announcements — TIG DAO, 2022–2023. Governance discussions covering chain expansion decisions (Polygon, BNB Chain), new market additions using Chainlink feeds, tigUSD yield parameter adjustments, and TIG token distribution phase reviews.

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