Perpetual Futures and Quarterly Futures

Future offers two flagship products for futures trading: Perpetual Futures and Quarterly Futures (not yet released, subject to the actual page). Here are the key differences between these two products:

Expiration

Quarterly futures contracts allow traders to buy or sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price before a specified period. These contracts have a limited lifespan and will expire based on their respective calendar cycle. For example, our BTC 0925 is a quarterly futures contract that will expire three months after the date of issuance.

On the other hand, perpetual futures contracts, as the name suggests, do not have an expiration date. Therefore, traders do not need to keep track of various delivery months, unlike quarterly futures contracts. For instance, a trader can keep a short position indefinitely unless they get liquidated.

Funding Rate

Since perpetual futures contracts never settle in the traditional sense, exchanges need a mechanism to ensure that futures prices and index prices converge on a regular basis. This mechanism is also known as Funding Rate/Fees.

Funding fees are periodic payments made to traders that are long or short based on the difference between perpetual contract markets and spot prices. Therefore, depending on open positions, traders will either pay or receive funding.

Unlike perpetual contracts, quarterly contracts do not carry a funding fee. This is favourable to long-term position traders and hedgers as funding fees may fluctuate over time. Especially in extreme market conditions, high funding fees can be costly to maintain a long-term position in the market.

For example, funding fees across BTC perpetual markets may surge as Bitcoin prices rally, indicating an imbalance of buying pressure in the market. This effect results in long positions becoming more costly to hold over time.