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What are perpetual futures?
Perpetual futures are contracts that let you bet on a coin's price going up or down without owning it and without an expiry date. Instead of expiring, they use regular funding payments between buyers and sellers to keep the contract price close to the coin's market price.
What it means for you
Perpetuals are usually traded with leverage, so a small price move can wipe out the margin you posted and close your position. You also pay or receive funding for as long as the position stays open, which can add up over weeks. A regulator warns leveraged traders can lose more than they put in.
How it works
A perpetual is a contract on a price, not the coin: profit and loss settle in the margin currency. With no expiry to pull the contract toward the market price, venues use funding payments between longs and shorts, on one large venue every hour. A position opens with initial margin equal to its size divided by the leverage chosen, and must keep a smaller maintenance margin, on that venue half the maximum initial margin fraction. Profit, loss and liquidation are measured against a mark price built from price indices.
An example
Say you open a 10,000 long at 10x leverage, posting 1,000 margin. A 5% rise gains 500, half your margin; a 5% fall loses 500. If longs are paying funding of 0.01% per hour, the 10,000 position costs 1 an hour, about 168 a week.
Sources: Hyperliquid docs: Contract specifications, CFTC: Understand the Risks of Virtual Currency Trading, Hyperliquid docs: Funding · checked 4 October 2026
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Educational content, not financial advice. Written by hand and checked against the source named above. Something wrong? Tell us and we reply within two business days.