No Expiry.
Perpetual futures are reaching Wall Street. They could change how the world trades.
From BitMEX’s XBTUSD to Hyperliquid’s onchain order book. A guide to where perpetual futures came from and what it takes to understand one.
The NOEXPIRY token
- Symbol
- $NOEXPIRY
- Network
- Elysium
- Launch supply
- 1 billion
- Market
- NOEXPIRY / HYPE
0xbbf4eda3c4eeb8d9401e8aa52d7ae6b14b376097NOEXPIRY is a community token that trades in a spot pool. Its creator may earn Montra creator points.
A contract without a deadline
A perpetual future gives price exposure without a fixed settlement date. Periodic funding payments help keep the contract close to its reference price.
- 1992–93
A theory for hard-to-price assets
Economist Robert Shiller proposed perpetual futures for cash flows tied to measures such as dividends and rents. His design explored how markets could price assets that rarely changed hands.
Shiller’s paper ↗ - 2016
BitMEX brings the crypto perp to market
BitMEX launched XBTUSD on 13 May. The Bitcoin swap had no expiry and used funding payments between longs and shorts. The team later tied funding more directly to the gap between the contract and spot prices.
Co-founder’s account ↗ · Launch date ↗ - 2020
Perps reach decentralized venues
dYdX announced the alpha of its BTC perpetual market in April 2020. Traders could get Bitcoin price exposure with USDC collateral.
dYdX launch announcement ↗ - 2023
Hyperliquid opens its mainnet alpha
Hyperliquid began with a small group of testers in February. Its exchange grew around an onchain order book, with orders, trades, and liquidations recorded on the chain.
Hyperliquid’s early timeline ↗
How Hyperliquid started
The team learned what traders needed by trading on the venues they wanted to improve.
Hyperliquid Labs is led by Jeff Yan and iliensinc, former Harvard classmates. The team started in crypto market making in 2020 and expanded into DeFi in 2022. They set out to improve the market design, performance, and trading experience they found there.
The self-funded team began developing an order book perp exchange in September 2022. It tested paper trading on Arbitrum Goerli, then tested its own Layer 1 and opened a small mainnet alpha in February 2023.
Today, HyperCore runs the spot and perpetual order books. HyperEVM provides a general-purpose environment for smart contracts on the same Layer 1.
Core contributors · 2023 development update · Hyperliquid docs
Before you open a perp
Read the contract specs. Know the full position size, the cost of holding it, and the conditions that can close it for you.
Do
- Size from your loss budget. Check what an adverse move would cost on the full position, including fees and slippage.
- Check margin mode and funding. Cross margin shares collateral across positions. Isolated margin assigns collateral to a position. Funding can change sign while you hold the trade.
- Plan the exit. Know your invalidation level and check which price triggers a stop. A reduce-only exit can help avoid accidentally opening a reverse position.
Don’t
- Use maximum leverage as a target. A small adverse move can consume a large part of your collateral.
- Count on a stop filling at its trigger. Price gaps, thin order books, and venue outages can change the fill or prevent it.
- Treat a displayed liquidation price as fixed. Funding and other cross positions can change it. Venues may use mark price rather than the last trade.
Funding · Margin · Liquidations · Stops
Try a price move
Change the inputs to see how a price move affects a hypothetical linear perp.
This example omits fees, funding, and liquidation. A real position can close before the modeled move plays out.
Enter values within the supported ranges to see the result.