What Is Perpetual Futures?
A futures contract with no expiry date. Perpetuals track the underlying asset's price through a funding rate mechanism instead of a settlement date, which lets traders hold leveraged positions indefinitely as long as they maintain margin.
Related Terms
- Funding Rate A periodic payment exchanged between long and short traders in perpetual futures, typically every eight hours.
- Mark Price A smoothed reference price, usually derived from spot indexes across several exchanges, used to calculate unrealized profit and trigger liquidations.
- Leverage Borrowed buying power that lets you control a position larger than your capital.
Where You Will Meet This Term
You will run into perpetual futures constantly on any futures exchange, from the order panel to the position dashboard. If you are still building your foundation, our guides on leverage, liquidation and risk management connect the vocabulary into an actual trading process, and the full glossary covers every other term you will encounter.