# What is Antarctic? Antarctic (AX) is a **decentralized perpetual futures exchange** designed to deliver **institutional-grade execution**, **low fees**, and **strong privacy guarantees**. AX combines **non-custodial settlement** with **transparent, rules-based market operations** to provide a trading venue that is **resilient**, **permissionless**, and aligned with the core principles of **on-chain finance**. To support **consistent execution quality**, AX is built around **deep liquidity** and **efficient price discovery**. The protocol is engineered to **minimize adverse selection** and reduce the **structural disadvantages** often faced by retail traders, while maintaining **clear and auditable market behavior** for all participants. AX aims to offer a **CEX-level user experience** without compromising the flexibility of **decentralized trading**. While the initial focus is **perpetuals**, the platform is designed to **expand its feature set over time**—prioritizing **performance**, **risk controls**, and product capabilities demanded by **active traders**.**alized trading.** While the initial focus is perpetuals, the platform is designed to expand its feature set over time—prioritizing performance, risk controls, and product capabilities demanded by active traders. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.antarctic.exchange/antarctic-overview/what-is-antarctic.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.