Overview
Strike Finance is a crypto trading platform where people trade with leverage, opening a position larger than their own deposit, without opening an account. It is built for active traders who want to profit from short-term price moves in assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and ADA, going long if they expect a rise or short if they expect a fall. Funds move from the trader's wallet into onchain locker contracts, the smart contracts that hold deposited funds and that anyone can inspect1, while a separate engine matches orders off the chain2.
Strike runs on Cardano and is built around perpetuals, futures contracts that never expire, so a position can stay open as long as the trader keeps enough collateral, wallet funds that back the position, behind it. It also accepts deposits from Cardano and Ethereum1, where independent tracker DefiLlama reports the value held in its contracts, and from Solana3. Its smart contracts, the onchain programs that hold deposits and settle withdrawals, are written in Aiken, Cardano's dedicated contract language, and have had two security audits, one of the perpetuals contracts4 and one of the forwards contracts by TxPipe5.
Key Features
- Leverage that varies by market and position size.6 Traders open long or short positions on Bitcoin, Ethereum, ADA, and other markets straight from a self-custody wallet, with no account, email, or identity check required.
- Staking rewards paid from real trading fees. People who stake the STRIKE token earn a share of the fees the platform collects, paid in the USDM stablecoin rather than newly created tokens, so payouts come from actual revenue, not inflation7.
- Vaults for hands-off participation. Anyone can deposit into a vault and earn a cut of the returns while an experienced trader manages the pooled funds, or run their own vault and trade on others' behalf for a performance fee.
- Copy trading. Traders can mirror a lead trader, either a Hyperliquid wallet or another Strike trader, and Strike places matching orders on their account whenever that lead trades8.
- Custody that stays on the blockchain. A dedicated high-speed engine called the Strike Node matches orders and handles liquidations, while every deposit sits in onchain contracts that anyone can inspect2.
- Open code and a public API. The smart contracts are open-source on the project's GitHub, and a documented API lets developers build their own bots, dashboards, and trading tools on top of Strike9,10.
What to Expect
The trading screen will feel familiar to anyone who has used a centralized exchange, with price charts, an order book, and one-click buttons to go long or short. There is no sign-up. You connect a wallet, deposit collateral, choose a market, and start trading. Every deposit and withdrawal settles through onchain contracts that anyone can inspect, and the documentation walks through how positions, collateral, and liquidations work. An Android app brings the same trading to mobile.
People who would rather not trade actively have two hands-off paths. They can stake the STRIKE token to collect a share of trading fees paid in the USDM stablecoin7, or deposit into a vault and let another trader manage the pool. A credit line lets depositors borrow into the Strike Liquidity Provider vault against ADA, SundaeSwap USDCx/USDM LP tokens, or Aave aUSDC11. Holders also help steer a community treasury, voting through a DAO, a group where token holders decide together how shared funds are spent12.
