{"investigation":{"slug":"avantis","entity_name":"Avantis","trust_score":62,"severity_base":null,"score_modifier":0,"confidence":0.5,"status":"published","content_type":"investigation","summary":"Avantis is a perpetuals exchange on Base that offers leveraged trading on crypto and real-world assets, with the AVNT token. Its original domain avantisfi.com now redirects to veranta.xyz, and the project has rebranded as Veranta while keeping the AVNT token. No hack, lawsuit or regulatory action was found in this research, but the research did not read the audit reports themselves and the team is not named on the project's own site.","sections":[{"content":"The project's original domain, avantisfi.com, returns a 301 redirect to veranta.xyz. The Veranta site describes perpetuals markets across crypto, stocks, FX, metals and energy, and says the $AVNT token is its economic engine. The only mention of Avantis on the Veranta homepage is a link to an analytics subdomain on avantisfi.com. DefiLlama lists the protocol as 'Veranta (formerly Avantis)'. A September 2026 report states that Avantis rebranded as Veranta and quotes the project as saying 'Nothing changes with our token; it will always be $AVNT.' The two names therefore refer to the same project, and Avantis is the name under which it built its history. Both names appear in this page for searchability.","heading":"Naming: Avantis and Veranta","sources":[{"url":"https://www.veranta.xyz/","name":"Veranta official site (avantisfi.com redirects here)","type":"official","credibility":2},{"url":"https://marketcapof.com/news/veranta-avantis-rebrand-rwa/","name":"Avantis Rebrands as Veranta With a Broader Focus on Real-World Markets","type":"news_article","credibility":3},{"url":"https://api.llama.fi/protocol/avantis","name":"DefiLlama API: Avantis protocol record","type":"on_chain","credibility":2}],"severity":"low"},{"content":"The Veranta homepage names no team members. It shows the logos of Pantera, Founders Fund, Base, Galaxy and Coinbase as partners. This research did not find a primary source naming the founders, so no individual is identified on this page. Anonymity or limited public team information is a transparency gap for users assessing counterparty risk.","heading":"Team and transparency","sources":[{"url":"https://www.veranta.xyz/","name":"Veranta official site","type":"official","credibility":2}],"severity":"medium"},{"content":"A press release distributed by DL News states that Avantis raised an $8M Series A co-led by Pantera Capital and Founders Fund, with participation from Symbolic Capital, SALT Fund, Flowdesk and others. The release states that the company had facilitated over $6.5B in trading volume and served more than 55,000 onchain traders and liquidity providers at the time. TokenInsight reported an earlier $4M seed round led by Pantera Capital with Founders Fund and the Base Ecosystem Fund. These figures come from company press materials and are not independently verified.","heading":"Funding and backers","sources":[{"url":"https://www.dlnews.com/external/avantis-raises-8m-in-series-a-funding-to-build-defis-universal-leverage-layer-for-real-world-assets-markets/","name":"Avantis raises $8M Series A (press release via DL News)","type":"news_article","credibility":2},{"url":"https://tokeninsight.com/en/news/on-chain-derivatives-platform-avantis-raises-4m-led-by-pantera-capital","name":"TokenInsight: Avantis Raises $4M Led by Pantera Capital","type":"news_article","credibility":2}],"severity":"low"},{"content":"Zellic published a security assessment of Avantis Labs, Inc. covering 6 to 24 November 2023 and dated December 2023. Its findings counts were reported as 6 critical, 7 high, 8 medium, 10 low and 7 informational. This research did not read the report to confirm how each finding was resolved. Three Sigma published a separate economic review of the LP tranche design. A February 2024 launch announcement says the protocol was audited by Zellic and Zokyo. DefiLlama records 2 audits and links to docs.veranta.xyz/security/audits, which was not fetched. Perpetuals exchanges carry inherent smart contract, oracle (Pyth and Chainlink per DefiLlama) and liquidity risks, and high leverage (one source cites up to 500x) can lead to rapid loss of deposited funds.","heading":"Smart contract security and audits","sources":[{"url":"https://reports.zellic.io/publications/avantis","name":"Zellic: Avantis audit publication","type":"research","credibility":2},{"url":"https://threesigma.xyz/case-studies/derivatives/avantis","name":"Three Sigma: Avantis case study","type":"research","credibility":2},{"url":"https://cryptoslate.com/press-releases/avantis-the-next-generation-perpetuals-dex-launches-today-on-base-mainnet/","name":"CryptoSlate: Avantis launches on Base mainnet","type":"news_article","credibility":2},{"url":"https://api.llama.fi/protocol/avantis","name":"DefiLlama API: Avantis protocol record","type":"on_chain","credibility":2}],"severity":"medium"},{"content":"Searches for an Avantis hack, exploit, lawsuit or regulatory action returned no relevant results. Absence of results is not proof that none occurred, and the searches were limited. A DefiLlama figure of about $11.32M TVL in USDC on Base was read from its API for roughly October 2026, but the snapshot was truncated and the value was not confirmed as the latest. Volume claims differ between sources (for example, about $100B cumulative reported at the rebrand versus $12B to $20B cited by aggregators) and come from the project or secondary sites.","heading":"Incidents, enforcement and litigation","sources":[{"url":"https://api.llama.fi/protocol/avantis","name":"DefiLlama API: Avantis protocol record","type":"on_chain","credibility":2},{"url":"https://marketcapof.com/news/veranta-avantis-rebrand-rwa/","name":"Avantis rebrand report","type":"news_article","credibility":3}],"severity":"low"},{"content":"AVNT is described by the project as providing a security module for liquidity providers, fee discounts for stakers, and buyback-and-burn. Secondary sources report a September 2025 airdrop with an opening price of $0.488 followed by a sharp decline, and a 1 billion token supply cap. These come from aggregator pages and were not verified against primary sources.","heading":"AVNT token","sources":[{"url":"https://www.veranta.xyz/","name":"Veranta official site","type":"official","credibility":2},{"url":"https://coinranking.com/coin/vKvvr9bkBZJs+avantis-avnt/about","name":"Coinranking: What is Avantis (AVNT)","type":"other","credibility":3}],"severity":"medium"}],"timeline":[{"date":"2023-09","event":"Seed round of $4M led by Pantera Capital reported","source":"TokenInsight","source_url":"https://tokeninsight.com/en/news/on-chain-derivatives-platform-avantis-raises-4m-led-by-pantera-capital"},{"date":"2023-12","event":"Zellic publishes security assessment of Avantis Labs, Inc. (assessment conducted November 2023)","source":"Zellic","source_url":"https://reports.zellic.io/publications/avantis"},{"date":"2024-02","event":"Avantis launches on Base mainnet and is listed on DefiLlama","source":"CryptoSlate","source_url":"https://cryptoslate.com/press-releases/avantis-the-next-generation-perpetuals-dex-launches-today-on-base-mainnet/"},{"date":"2025-06","event":"$8M Series A co-led by Pantera Capital and Founders Fund announced","source":"DL News (press release)","source_url":"https://www.dlnews.com/external/avantis-raises-8m-in-series-a-funding-to-build-defis-universal-leverage-layer-for-real-world-assets-markets/"},{"date":"2025-09","event":"AVNT token airdrop reported","source":"Coinranking","source_url":"https://coinranking.com/coin/vKvvr9bkBZJs+avantis-avnt/about"},{"date":"2026-09","event":"Avantis announced as rebranded to Veranta; AVNT token unchanged","source":"MarketCapOf","source_url":"https://marketcapof.com/news/veranta-avantis-rebrand-rwa/"}],"sources_used":[{"url":"https://www.veranta.xyz/","name":"Veranta official site","type":"official","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20261003175639/https://www.veranta.xyz/","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-10-03T17:56:39+00:00"},{"url":"https://marketcapof.com/news/veranta-avantis-rebrand-rwa/","name":"Avantis Rebrands as Veranta","type":"news_article","archive_url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013092435/https://marketcapof.com/news/veranta-avantis-rebrand-rwa/","credibility":3,"archive_timestamp":"2026-10-13T09:24:35+00:00"},{"url":"https://api.llama.fi/protocol/avantis","name":"DefiLlama API: Avantis protocol record","type":"on_chain","archive_url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013091316/https://api.llama.fi/protocol/avantis","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-10-13T09:13:16+00:00"},{"url":"https://www.dlnews.com/external/avantis-raises-8m-in-series-a-funding-to-build-defis-universal-leverage-layer-for-real-world-assets-markets/","name":"DL News press release: Series A","type":"news_article","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260703112641/https://www.dlnews.com/external/avantis-raises-8m-in-series-a-funding-to-build-defis-universal-leverage-layer-for-real-world-assets-markets/","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-07-03T11:26:41+00:00"},{"url":"https://tokeninsight.com/en/news/on-chain-derivatives-platform-avantis-raises-4m-led-by-pantera-capital","name":"TokenInsight: seed round","type":"news_article","archive_url":null,"credibility":2,"archive_error":"error:no-request","archive_status":"unarchivable","archive_timestamp":null},{"url":"https://reports.zellic.io/publications/avantis","name":"Zellic: Avantis audit","type":"research","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20251108030445/https://reports.zellic.io/publications/avantis","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2025-11-08T03:04:45+00:00"},{"url":"https://threesigma.xyz/case-studies/derivatives/avantis","name":"Three Sigma: Avantis case study","type":"research","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260607073841/https://threesigma.xyz/case-studies/derivatives/avantis","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-06-07T07:38:41+00:00"},{"url":"https://cryptoslate.com/press-releases/avantis-the-next-generation-perpetuals-dex-launches-today-on-base-mainnet/","name":"CryptoSlate: Avantis launch","type":"news_article","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260419145424/https://cryptoslate.com/press-releases/avantis-the-next-generation-perpetuals-dex-launches-today-on-base-mainnet/","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-04-19T14:54:24+00:00"},{"url":"https://coinranking.com/coin/vKvvr9bkBZJs+avantis-avnt/about","name":"Coinranking: Avantis (AVNT)","type":"other","archive_url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013185207/https://coinranking.com/coin/vKvvr9bkBZJs+avantis-avnt/about","credibility":3,"archive_timestamp":"2026-10-13T18:52:07+00:00"}],"source_tags":[],"addresses":[],"reviewed":false,"reviewed_by":null,"model_used":"claude-code-investigator","created_at":"2026-10-13T05:21:20.299807+00:00","updated_at":"2026-10-13T19:36:58.643819+00:00"},"source_quality":{"total":9,"tier1":0,"tier2":1,"tier3":0,"unrated":8},"follower_count":null,"content_updated_at":"2026-10-13T05:21:20.532Z","last_fact_checked_at":null,"fact_check_next_allowed_at":null,"update_next_allowed_at":null}