Perpetual Futures (Perps)
Futures with no expiry date, kept aligned to spot by funding payments — by far crypto's most-traded derivative.
Perpetual futures are the crypto-native derivative: leveraged futures contracts that never expire, so traders can hold a position indefinitely. To keep the perpetual price tethered to spot, exchanges use a funding rate — periodic payments between longs and shorts that pull the price back toward the index.
Perps dominate crypto trading volume because they offer simple, continuous, high-leverage exposure without expiry management. That same accessibility makes them the epicenter of crypto’s leverage risk: open interest and funding on perps drive the liquidation cascades behind many sharp moves. For most investors they’re a tool to understand from the sidelines, not to trade.