Is GMX Safe?
Risk Grade: C (47/100)
GMX is rated as elevated risk — multiple novel mechanisms and notable interaction risks.
High risk — proven hack history and structural vulnerability where oracle delays create guaranteed extraction from the liquidity pool
A perpetual futures exchange where liquidity providers act as the house against all trades, earning fees but absorbing trader profits. It holds $600M in its liquidity pool across Arbitrum and Avalanche. Its C- grade reflects a $42M hack in July 2025 and persistent oracle exploitation risk.
TVL
$240M
Mechanisms
8
Interactions
6
Value Grade
B-
Key Risks for GMX Users
GMX was hacked for $42M in July 2025 through a reentrancy bug in old V1 contracts that are still holding user funds alongside the newer V2
All trades are priced by Chainlink oracles. Even a brief delay or inaccuracy in the price feed lets traders extract guaranteed profits from the liquidity pool at your expense
When the market trends strongly in one direction, traders win big and the liquidity pool pays out. Pool depositors lost 15-20% during past crypto rallies, wiping out months of earned fees
Top Risk Factors
- •$42M reentrancy exploit in July 2025 on V1 contracts demonstrates persistent legacy code risk despite V2 migration
- •Heavy oracle dependency for zero-slippage pricing creates systemic exposure to Chainlink feed manipulation or downtime
- •GLP/GM pool liquidity providers act as counterparty to all trades, concentrating directional risk during trending markets
How GMX Compares to Peers
GMX ranks #46 of 53 Derivatives protocols (bottom quartile — among the riskiest). At a risk score of 47/100, it's 8 points riskier than the sector average of 39/100.
Adjacent peers: SynFutures V3 (C, 45/100) is ranked just safer, and Antarctic (C, 47/100) is ranked just riskier.
See the full Derivatives sector leaderboard or the GMX vs Antarctic comparison.
Common Questions about GMX
Plain-English answers based on GMX's scores across Hindenrank's 8 risk dimensions. The highest-scoring (riskiest) dimension is Oracle Surface (7/10).
Has GMX ever been hacked or exploited?
GMX has had some operational issues or moderate incidents in its history. The track record dimension scored 10/15 — not catastrophic, but enough to flag. Look at the specific events and whether they were addressed by the team before drawing conclusions.
How much money is at stake in GMX?
GMX currently holds more than $240M in user deposits. A protocol of this size typically has deeper liquidity, more eyes on the code, and more attention from auditors — but it also means a single failure has a much larger blast radius.
What's the worst-case scenario for GMX?
Hindenrank has identified specific collapse scenarios for GMX. The most prominent: "Oracle Exploitation and LP Pool Drain". The trigger condition is Chainlink oracle feed for a major asset (ETH, BTC) experiences >1% deviation from true market price for 30+ seconds during a volatile period. Reading through the full scenario list on the protocol page is the single best way to understand the actual failure modes — generic "smart contract risk" is rarely the thing that takes a protocol down.
Is GMX regulated or insured?
GMX has low regulatory exposure on Hindenrank's framework (3/10). The protocol is structured in a way that minimizes counterparty and jurisdiction concentration, though regulatory risk in crypto can change rapidly. No DeFi protocol carries FDIC-style insurance — even with low regulatory risk, depositors are not protected in the way bank customers are.
What are the biggest red flags for GMX?
Hindenrank's retail-focused risk audit flagged: GMX was hacked for $42M in July 2025 through a reentrancy bug in old V1 contracts that are still holding user funds alongside the newer V2 All trades are priced by Chainlink oracles. Even a brief delay or inaccuracy in the price feed lets traders extract guaranteed profits from the liquidity pool at your expense When the market trends strongly in one direction, traders win big and the liquidity pool pays out. Pool depositors lost 15-20% during past crypto rallies, wiping out months of earned fees
Should beginners deposit into GMX?
GMX's C grade puts it in the elevated-risk band. This is not a beginner-friendly protocol. Anyone depositing here should treat the position as speculative and avoid concentrating significant savings in it.
How does GMX compare to safer Derivatives alternatives?
GMX is one protocol in Hindenrank's Derivatives coverage. The safest Derivatives protocols on the leaderboard tend to share three traits: a long incident-free track record, conservative mechanism design, and high-quality public documentation. Compare GMX against the full Derivatives ranking before committing capital.
For the full 8-dimension score breakdown, the radar chart, and dependency graph, see the GMX risk report.
Read the Full GMX Risk Report
This protocol has 2 collapse scenarios. 4 high-severity interaction risks identified. See the full mechanism classification, interaction matrix, and deep-dive recommendations.
View Full Report →Get risk alerts before it's too late
Weekly grade changes, downgrade alerts, and new protocol risk findings. Free.