In perp trading, you open a position, hold it as long as your margin allows, and close it when you decide. Crypto perpetual futures work the same way. What differs between platforms is the detail: how funding is paid, which price judges your position, and how your order gets filled.
Each chapter gives you the short version and one link into the full guide. Read them in order once. After that, use the chapter list to jump to the piece you need.
What a perpetual is
A perpetual futures contract follows the price of an asset and has no expiry date. A dated futures contract settles on a fixed day. A perp does not, so you can hold it for as long as your margin allows.
That missing date creates a problem. Nothing forces the contract price back to spot at settlement. Perps solve it with funding, a recurring payment between traders. More on that next.
A contract without a close also means a market that usually runs around the clock. Your position stays open while you sleep, and it keeps counting against your account.
- Full guide Trading a challenge in a market that never closes What a market without a close means for daily limits, weekends and open positions.
Funding keeps perps near spot
Funding is a payment between long and short traders. It is not a fee collected by the platform. When the rate is positive, longs pay shorts. When it is negative, shorts pay longs.
The payment keeps the perp price close to the spot price. If the contract trades above spot, longs usually pay shorts. That makes holding a long less attractive and pulls the price back down.
Funding is charged on position size, not on profit or loss. The longer you hold, the more it adds up. Treat a stretched rate as a description of how the market is positioned right now. Not a forecast.
- Full guide Funding rates in perpetual futures, explained Who pays whom, why perps need funding, and what it costs a leveraged position over time.
Open interest is a stock, volume is a flow
Open interest counts the contracts that are still open. It changes only when a position opens or closes, never when a position changes hands. Volume, by contrast, counts every trade.
A market can show heavy volume with flat open interest, or the reverse. That is why you read the two side by side instead of treating them as one number.
Open interest does not set funding. Funding follows how far the perpetual price trades above or below its index price, which reflects buying or selling pressure. Long and short open interest are always equal, because every open contract has one long side and one short side.
Open interest and funding therefore describe different things: how many contracts are open, and which side is paying to hold its position. Read them together.
- Full guide Open interest in perpetual futures: what it tells you What open interest counts, how it differs from volume, and how to read it next to funding.
Mark price vs index price
Your screen shows more than one price. The last price is where the most recent trade happened. The index price blends spot prices from several external markets. The mark price is anchored to the index and smoothed.
Perp venues usually use the mark price for unrealized P&L and liquidation checks, not the last trade. That makes a brief wick on one order book expensive to exploit. A real, sustained move still reaches your position.
So your position can be closed even when the last price on your chart never touched your level. Know which of the three prices your platform uses before you size a trade.
- Full guide Mark price vs index price Why your liquidation is not based on the last trade, and how the mark price is built.
Leverage and margin
Leverage does not add money to your account. It lowers how much of your own capital a position requires. That capital is your margin. Margin is not a fee. You set it aside and get it back when the position closes.
Initial margin opens a position. Maintenance margin is the floor that keeps it open. Higher leverage on the same position size shrinks the room between your entry and a forced close.
Here is the mechanism. The margin you post covers only a fraction of the position’s value, while a price move is measured against the whole position. So a small move can take a large share of your margin. Position size, not the leverage figure, decides what a move costs you.
- Full guide Leverage and margin in crypto trading: the basics What leverage changes, what margin is, and why you size the position before you pick leverage.
Isolated and cross margin
Margin mode decides where a forced close can happen. With isolated margin, a position’s collateral is limited to the margin you assign it. A forced close can take that amount and no more.
With cross margin, your shared account balance backs every open position. Each buffer gets wider, but one large loss can reach everything you hold.
Neither mode changes what a price move is worth in dollars. Position size decides that. Pick the mode that matches how much of your account you accept to expose to a single trade.
- Full guide Isolated vs cross margin How each mode works, the same trade under both, and what to weigh before you choose.
Liquidation
A liquidation is a forced close. It happens when the margin behind a position no longer covers its loss, so the platform closes the position for you. The check usually runs against the mark price, not the last trade.
Where your liquidation level sits depends on your position size, your margin and your margin mode.
Order types
A market order trades certainty of price for certainty of execution. A limit order does the opposite. In a fast or thin market, a market order pays in slippage, while a limit order pays in the trade you never got.
Give entries and exits separate answers. Missing an entry costs you an opportunity. Missing an exit can cost you real money. Two different problems.
A stop order controls when an order fires, not what fills. A stop-market buys certainty of execution. A stop-limit buys certainty of price and can stay unfilled in a fast market. Placement is a distance decision, covered in the stop-loss guide.
- Full guide Market order vs limit order Which one fits a fast-moving perp market, and when a limit order pays off.
- Related guide Stop-loss orders: types, placement logic and common mistakes How stop orders convert, where to place them, and how distance turns into position size.
Slippage
Slippage is the gap between the price you expected and the price your order filled at. It is a feature of live markets, not a malfunction. It can also work in your favor. Nobody charges it.
Three forces widen the gap: thin liquidity, fast-moving prices and large order size. Each works on its own.
Leverage does not cause slippage. It makes the same slippage a larger share of your committed capital. Slippage describes execution quality after the fact. It says nothing about where price goes next.
- Full guide Slippage: why your fill is not your quote The three forces behind slippage, and how order book and oracle pricing produce it differently.
Maker and taker fees
A maker order adds a new price to the book and waits. A taker order matches a price that is already there and fills right away. The fee category follows that behavior, not your intent when you placed the order.
Platforms typically charge takers more than makers, because resting orders give the book its depth. A limit order is a maker order only if it does not cross the book the moment you submit it.
Fees come out of your equity, so they matter more on small, frequent trades. Chasing the lower fee can still cost you more in a missed fill than it saves. This page quotes no fee levels. Fees differ by platform.
- Full guide Maker vs taker fees What separates a maker from a taker, why the gap exists, and what it does to your equity.
The order book behind your fill
A central limit order book matches buy and sell orders by price-time priority. The best price goes first. When prices tie, the oldest order goes first.
Other models exist. An automated market maker prices trades against a shared liquidity pool using a formula. An oracle-priced venue takes its price from an external feed. Each one produces a different fill for you.
Before you assume how a platform prices you, check which model sits behind it. The model changes what a quote means and how your order size affects your fill.
- Full guide What is a central limit order book (CLOB)? How a book matches orders, how pool and feed pricing differ, and what to check first.
