The biggest feature of "perpetual" is that there is no expiration date!

Unlike traditional futures that have a delivery date (which must be settled), you can hold your "bet" indefinitely and close it whenever you want (as long as... you still have money). The goal: to profit from price fluctuations (whether rising or falling). Go long if you are bullish (buy up), go short if you are bearish (buy down).

How does it "work"? Unveiling the core mechanism

Leverage: This is the key to "getting rich quickly or suffering huge losses"! It allows you to trade with much larger amounts of capital using a small amount of principal (margin). For example, with 100x leverage, 100 can be used as 10,000.

Temptation: A 1% price fluctuation could magnify your profits/losses by 100 times!

Deadly risk: A slight reverse price fluctuation could wipe out your principal (or even leave you in debt) — this is called liquidation!

Funding rate: This is the secret that allows perpetual contracts to be "perpetual"!

Function: It keeps the contract price closely tied to the spot price (anchoring).

Principle: Periodically (for example, every 8 hours), a small fee is settled between the long and short positions. If the market is bullish (more people going long), then the longs have to pay the shorts to encourage shorting, pulling the price back a bit, and vice versa.

Impact on you: When holding a position, you may receive money (positive rate) or pay money (negative rate). Consider this in your long-term holding costs!

Important warning: Contract risks are extremely high and not suitable for the vast majority of ordinary investors!

1. Deeply understand leverage: For those who do not understand position control and like to go all in, it is advised to use a low leverage of 5x.

2. Only use money you can afford to lose: The funds you invest must be completely idle, and losing them all should not affect your living. Never borrow money, take loans, or use living expenses to trade contracts!

Position management: The margin for a single trade should not exceed a small portion of your total capital (for example, 1%-5%). Diversify risks to avoid losing everything in one mistake.

3. Pay attention to funding rates: For long-term holdings, be aware of whether the rate is positive or negative, as it affects your holding costs. This mainly applies to popular altcoins, such as the earlier MYX rate package -2 (negative 2, settled every hour; if you short it, you might lose your principal before even seeing a profit due to funding rates) while mainstream usually does not vary much.