Arcus scraps $25M volume gate, lets all perps traders post stock tokens

Arcus just tore down the velvet rope. The exchange said Thursday that every trader who can use its perpetual futures can now post stock tokens and wrapped Ether as collateral, no $25 million trading volume required.

The feature debuted Oct. 19 as an early-access perk for accounts that had already cleared more than $25 million in Arcus trading volume. Now it's for everyone eligible, and there's no separate setting to flip — borrowing switches on by itself once the right tokens land in a trader's perpetuals account.

What's allowed in: wrapped Ether (WETH), USDG, and tokens tied to SPY, QQQ, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta and Tesla. Each asset carries an initial loan-to-value ratio of 50%. Before the expansion, most Arcus traders had to park USDG to cover perpetual futures margin.

The guardrails are tight for now. Deposits of anything other than USDG are capped at $20,000 per trader and $2 million across the platform, and each account can borrow up to $10,000. Arcus rejects orders that would shove a loan past that ceiling, meaning the borrowing limit sits separate from the deposit caps.

Borrowing is automatic, and so are the consequences. Any margin need or trading loss the account's USDG doesn't cover turns into a variable-rate loan, which shrinks as the margin requirement falls. Arcus can liquidate if falling token prices or a swelling loan breach an asset's maintenance level — or if the loan blows past the account limit. That liquidation can mean closing perpetual positions, selling collateral tokens, or both.

Founder and CEO Eddie Zhang framed the move as a way to squeeze more use out of stock-token value. Traders can back existing positions, open new ones or hedge, he said. "Spot positions and perpetuals positions shouldn't have to operate in separate silos," Zhang said in the announcement, per TokenPost. For now, Arcus remains off-limits in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The exchange went live on Robinhood Chain on July 1 through a dYdX and Robinhood partnership.