Sai is a decentralized perpetual futures exchange operating on the Nibiru blockchain. Launched on February 18, 2026, the platform is designed to provide a trading experience with the high-speed performance of a centralized exchange (CEX) while ensuring the transparency, self-custody, and verifiability of on-chain settlement. The project's official tagline is "Trade, Earn, Burn." ^{[1] [2]}.

The exchange's mission is to offer an advanced trading environment without requiring users to compromise on core decentralized finance (DeFi) principles like self-custody and transparency. ^[1]. The platform aims to provide a low-cost, low price impact trading experience accessible to a wide range of traders, from beginners to advanced professionals. ^[3]. Prior to its public launch, the smart contract audit for the core protocol logic was finalized. ^[3]​

History

Sai's mainnet and its flagship product, Sai Perps, officially launched on February 18, 2026. ^[1].

Leading up to the launch, the project was in a phase of active development, with a focus on finalizing the core protocol and building out the web application. ^[3].

The launch was accompanied by the announcement of "Let’s Go Saicho," an inaugural on-chain trading competition designed to incentivize user activity and platform adoption. The competition was scheduled to run for one month following the launch. ^[1]​

Technology and Architecture

Sai is built on a hybrid architecture that combines high-performance execution with decentralized, verifiable settlement on the Nibiru blockchain. ^{[2] [1]}​

Hybrid Model

The core of Sai's design is its hybrid model, which separates trade execution from settlement. This allows for a user experience that mimics the speed and responsiveness of a CEX, offering features like "instant fills," while all final transactions are settled on-chain. This approach aims to give traders a familiar, high-performance interface without sacrificing the security and immutability of a decentralized ledger. ^{[2] [1]}​

On-Chain Settlement on Nibiru

The entire protocol is built as a set of CosmWasm smart contracts deployed on the Nibiru blockchain. This foundation allows all matched trades to be finalized and recorded on-chain, providing full transparency and ensuring that users maintain self-custody of their funds. ^[3]. The development team has cited a heavy focus on creating robust liquidity infrastructure, risk management systems, and a reliable oracle design to ensure market integrity. ^[1]​

Gasless Transactions and Execution

A key feature of the platform is gasless transactions, which allows users to execute trades without paying network fees for each individual transaction. This is intended to lower the barrier to entry for active traders. This functionality is planned to be enabled through the use of smart accounts. ^{[2] [1]}​

Oracle-Settled Pricing

To ensure fair pricing and mitigate the risk of price manipulation, Sai employs an oracle settlement model. This system uses a hybrid approach to source price data. The primary source is Nibiru's native oracle network, which aggregates price feeds from major centralized exchanges such as Binance, Bybit, and OKX through its decentralized validator network. For certain other markets, the platform may also utilize custom price feeds. ^[3]​

Developer Components

Sai provides resources for developers to build on or integrate with the platform. The architecture is composed of two main components:

• Sai Core: This includes the core smart contracts of the protocol, such as the perpetuals contract, a borrowing module, and state variables that manage the platform's operations.
• Sai Keeper: A GraphQL API endpoint that allows developers and applications to query and subscribe to on-chain data, including user positions, liquidity levels, oracle prices, and fee data.

The project offers guides for integration from both EVM and CosmWasm environments and has published its contract addresses for mainnet and testnet deployments. ^[3]​

Platform Features

Sai offers a suite of features designed for both novice and experienced derivatives traders.

Trading Capabilities

• Leveraged Trading: Users can open long or short perpetual futures positions with up to 100x leverage. The maximum available leverage is determined on a per-market and per-pair basis.
• Order Types: The platform supports a variety of order types, including market, limit, stop-loss, and take-profit orders.
• User Interface: The UI is designed to be simple, featuring one-click trading and a simplified portfolio view to cater to a broad range of users. ^{[3] [2]}

Collateral and Margin Management

Sai utilizes a portfolio margin system, which allows users to manage all their trading positions from a single, unified margin balance rather than splitting capital across different trading pairs. The platform also features flexible collateral options, supporting standard assets like USDC as well as yield-bearing assets such as stNIBI. This enables traders' capital to potentially continue earning yield while being used as margin. ^{[2] [1]}​

Accessibility and Onboarding

To facilitate user onboarding, Sai supports multi-chain deposits, allowing users to deposit USDC and other stablecoins from major blockchains including Ethereum and Base. Additionally, the platform has integrated with partners to provide fiat on-ramps, enabling users to deposit funds directly from checking accounts, debit cards, or credit cards. ^[2]​

Products and Yield Generation

The platform's offerings are centered around trading and passive yield opportunities, reflecting its "Trade, Earn, Burn" tagline.

Sai Perps

Sai Perps is the platform's flagship product. It is the decentralized exchange interface where users can trade perpetual futures contracts on various listed asset pairs. ^[1]​

Liquidity Provision Vaults

Sai offers a passive yield generation mechanism through its Liquidity Provision Vaults, corresponding to the "Earn" component of its tagline. Users, referred to as Sai Liquidity Providers (SLPs), can deposit collateral into single-asset vaults. Trading fees generated by activity on the exchange are collected and distributed to these SLPs. The system is designed to be an "effortless" process that does not require active management from liquidity providers. ^[2]​

Team and Development

The copyright for the Sai platform is held by the Liquiditea Foundation, indicating it is a primary entity behind the project's development and operation. ^[2].

Matthias Darblade has been identified publicly as a "Sai contributor" and has acted as a spokesperson for the project. In a statement regarding the platform's launch, Darblade said:

"Onchain markets shouldn’t require traders to compromise between speed and self-custody. Sai Perps is designed for active traders who want a clean, CEX-like experience, while still getting the transparency and settlement guarantees that only onchain infrastructure can provide." ^[1]