AX FAQ

What products are listed on AX Exchange?

Trade AI compute, FX, stocks, interest rates, metals, stock indexes and more. See the full live list at architect.co/ax/products.

Do AX contracts ever expire?

AX's dated futures expire monthly, quarterly and annually. Our perpetuals do not have an expiration date.

What are the fees?

The full fee schedule is published at architect.co/ax/fees.

When is AX open? What are the hours?

AX is open 23/7, with a one-hour daily maintenance window from 3–4pm CT.

Which third-party platforms are supported?

• NautilusTrader
• Deltix
• Hummingbot

Is AX regulated?

AX is regulated by the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) under a dual license, covering both digital asset business (under the Digital Asset Business Act) and traditional financial services activities. This allows AX to offer compliant derivatives products within a single regulatory framework.

What's on the product roadmap?

AX has plans to introduce derivatives products on AI Compute, Power, and Thematic Indices. For more information about our product roadmap and timeline, feel free to contact sales@architect.co.

How are index prices for the contracts calculated?

We use market-established and publicly available prices for our spot benchmarks. For equities, we use multiple Time-Weighted Average Price (TWAP) throughout the trading day, computed over 30 minute intervals. For metals and FX, we use the WM/Reuters 4 pm LSEG fixing rate. See the product specifications for individual product details.

How do closing price, intraday margin, and funding rates work?

This is one of the main differentiators of AX. We only use benchmarks from high liquidity international standard price sources to minimize manipulation and avoid low-liquidity sources.

Margin is computed intraday based only on the price of the perpetual. No other oracle or index is used intraday except when computing the funding settlement process.

Does AX Exchange provide historical market data?

We provide historical candles, which are available via the API. However tick data is currently not stored. See the API documentation at docs.architect.exchange/api-reference/marketdata/get-candles.

What are the exact cutoff times for funding settlement?

Documented in the product specs (available at architect.co/ax/products, or in the app under Product Specs). Cutoffs are:

• Equities: Every 30 minutes from 10:00 am ET through 4:00 pm ET (inclusive)
• Metals and FX: 4:00 pm UK
• WTI: 2:30 pm ET

Can a position be closed before cutoff to avoid funding?

Yes. Funding is only paid or received on positions held at the funding timestamp. If you are flat at the cutoff, no funding is exchanged.

Is there a cap or volatility limit on funding rates?

Yes. The standard cap is 25bps, also documented in the product specs. For equities, each of the 13 fundings is subject to a 2bp cap.

Is funding determined hourly or daily?

For most products, funding is determined daily, and generally only on weekdays when the underlying market is open. For equities, there is a funding cycle every 30 minutes during the US trading day. See each product's specifications for further details.

For perps that only settle funding on business days, are Mondays going to be a 3-day funding? Or 4 days if it was a holiday?

No, each funding is treated the same — there's no multiplier or catchup for Mondays.

How are equity dividends handled?

We have special settlements on the day prior to dividend ex-date to account for the corporate action.

What is maximum leverage?

The maximum leverage across all products is 25x. Also, minimum maintenance margin is 4% (1/0.04) for FX pairs and US treasuries. See the individual product specifications for each future's leverage and margin requirements.

Where is the matching engine hosted?

AWS Europe (London).

Which availability zone?

euw2-az1.

Is replace_order atomic?

Yes, replace_order is atomic.

Where can I find more infrastructure details?

Full AWS location and technical FAQ: docs.architect.exchange/guides/getting-started/technical-faqs#infrastructure.

Is the API the same across all products, or per-product?

The same API is used across every product. There is no per-product API to integrate.

What is a Smart Post-Only (SPO) order?

A Smart Post-Only order improves on the standard Post-Only order by automatically adjusting prices to ensure the order enters the book as a maker order, avoiding cancellation.

Can traders get a separate, dedicated dev account for testing?

Yes. Today most integrators have an API key in the AX sandbox environment for testing. If you would prefer a standalone sandbox account that you control yourself, we are happy to provision one.

Do you offer subaccounts and read-only accounts?

Yes. For more information please ask your sales representative.

Do you have a market making program?

Yes, we have a robust market making program. Please contact sales@architect.co for more information.

Who holds my collateral?

Anchorage holds customer collateral on Architect's behalf. This allows each firm to focus on its core strengths; Anchorage on custody and Architect on execution.

What is Architect's credit risk, and how can traders protect against it (bankruptcy, bank run, etc.)?

As a core component of risk management, customer funds are completely segregated, so customer funds are always kept protected.

Additionally, AX has endowed a segregated insurance fund for situations where a user's funds are insufficient to cover their losses. The insurance fund protects market participants by ensuring sufficient capital is available to make counterparties whole, reducing the need for further measures such as auto-deleveraging. For larger trading firms, we leverage subaccounts to help manage risk.

The fund was seeded with $250,000 and its size is regularly reviewed to ensure a proper safety layer of capital.

Formally, this is covered in section 6.12 of the margin policy: architect.co/legal/ax/margin-policy.

What happens if an account gets liquidated and can't pay the amount owed to Architect? Are the bad-debt funds taken from AX's insurance fund?

Yes, the insurance fund is first used to cover losses and holds $250K. This fund is currently held in a separate Anchorage vault. If it extends beyond that, then an Auto De-leveraging (ADL) process would be applied.

Our formal policy is documented in sections 6.12–6.13 of the margin policy.

How do the weekend liquidation mechanics work? Do we liquidate accounts on weekends? And at what price?

Nothing changes regarding liquidation mechanics whether it is weekend vs weekday. Accounts are subject to liquidation during all hours, any day, if they breach maintenance margin. Liquidations always execute in the orderbook against live bids and offers, so the fill is at whatever the current bids/offers are at that moment — there's no Friday index or settlement price used. Currently, we are not auto-liquidating institutions and allowing them the chance to rectify, depending on the severity of the breach.

Can USD be converted to USDC on the platform?

Architect does not offer a standalone currency-conversion service. Deposits and withdrawals are solely in support of your trading activity.

At the point of withdrawal, you are welcome to request either USD or USDC regardless of your deposit currency, and we will do our best to accommodate where reasonably practicable.

Please also note: accounts showing regular deposits and withdrawals with limited trading activity will be subject to review by our compliance team.

Do you accept individual and institutional accounts?

Yes. Individual investors are able to establish accounts directly with AX, and regulated brokerages and other approved financial intermediaries can integrate with AX using omnibus accounts, facilitating trading on behalf of multiple underlying customers through a consolidated account structure.

Will you accept a UK Ltd as the onboarding entity, with a US person as the owner and US tax resident?

Yes, with two requirements driven by KYC/AML:

• At least one non-US director-level individual must be in place to pass KYC and AML checks.
• US ownership by itself is not a problem, but the entity must be (1) a non-US entity and (2) staffed with at least one non-US employee who has investment-strategy authority (cannot be an admin, secretary, or similar non-decision-making role).