Perpetuals

What Are Perpetuals?

Perpetuals let traders take leveraged long or short positions on an asset without owning the underlying asset and without a fixed expiration date.

A trader takes a long position when expecting the price to rise or a short position when expecting it to fall. Because the contract does not expire, the market uses a funding mechanism to help keep the perpetual price aligned with the underlying spot market over time.

For example, a trader who commits $1,000 of collateral to a 3× long position takes $3,000 of market exposure. A 5% move in the underlying asset changes the value of that position by roughly $150, before funding and trading costs, rather than the $50 change associated with an unleveraged $1,000 position. The same structure works in the opposite direction through a short position.

Perpetuals also give traders a way to hedge existing exposure, manage portfolio risk, and take positions on market direction without continually moving in and out of the underlying asset itself.

Perpetuals on TEZEX

We are building toward perpetuals as an extension of the liquidity and trading infrastructure around TEZEX.

The spot markets underneath them provide the pricing, liquidity, and trading activity that connect the derivative market back to the underlying assets. As TEZEX develops faster execution and more sophisticated market infrastructure, perpetuals add another layer of trading on top of that foundation.

For users, this expands the range of positions available within the broader Tezos market environment, from ordinary spot exposure to leveraged long and short positions.

A Broader Tezos Trading Market

Perpetuals bring a category of trading activity that remains concentrated on centralized exchanges and a relatively small number of large DeFi venues.

Bringing that market into TEZEX gives Tezos assets a more complete trading environment. Traders gain access to leverage, short exposure, and hedging, while the underlying spot markets gain additional activity from pricing, arbitrage, and interaction between spot and derivative positions.

Together with margin trading, perpetuals move TEZEX beyond spot exchange functionality and toward a broader market where traders can express different kinds of exposure without leaving the Tezos ecosystem.