The good and the bad of perps, according to crypto traders

Talk about crypto trading with any savvy trader, and the first thing that comes up these days is perpetual futures, or “perps” — derivatives contracts that allow traders to control a much larger position than the money held in the account. Perps work like standard futures, but with one key advantage: there is no expiry.

While bitcoin and ether traders can dabble in spot, futures, options, perpetual futures and even structured products, for traders of other altcoins, perps are perhaps the only avenue for derivatives available to them. Dated futures (those with expiry) for altcoins are illiquid, and the spot market is an afterthought for anybody who doesn't plan to hold.

So, CoinDesk talked to traders who have thrived in the perpetual futures market to explain what makes perps different from other derivatives, how they help efficiently manage the needs of institutional traders and retail traders alike and what perps trading actually costs.

Their answers were clear and nearly unanimous: everyone loves perps because of their deep liquidity, cheap trading fees and brutal margin efficiency, which is the amount of trading exposure you can get per unit of collateral you post.

But trading fees aren’t the only expense for traders. There’s also a recurring cost for keeping positions open, called funding rates. Think of it as an interest charge that builds up the longer you hold, and the traders we spoke with are concerned about how much this could add up.

If you ask traders why crypto perps average a daily volume of over $200 billion, they’ll tell you it’s not a matter of choice, but one of necessity.

Lucas Krenn, a derivatives trader at market-making firm STS Digital, and an independent trader for six years, said perps are the plumbing underneath everything the firm does.

"Outside bitcoin and ether, dated futures liquidity is thin to the point of being unusable," he said. "So perps are not one tool among several. For a crypto native firm, they are the tool."

Dated futures aren’t popular mainly because they have to be replaced with new contracts at expiry, and that process costs money. Those same costs are why futures-based ETFs tend to be less efficient than spot ETFs.

Liquidity refers to the market's ability to absorb large buy and sell orders at stable prices. Per Krenn, standard dated futures are largely illiquid, meaning a few big orders can easily sway prices in either direction, raising slippage and spoiling execution for traders. (Slippage is the price at which the trade was submitted and the price at which it was actually executed.

Kenneth Ong, an independent trader for six years, with most of his trading activity concentrated in perps, explained a similar draw to perpetual futures from the perspective of a retail trader. According to Ong, perps offer better fills, meaning your order is executed at a more favorable price than you expected or than the ongoing market quote when you sent the order, lower fees, and the ability to run both sides at once via hedge mode. In simple terms, the hedge mode allows the trader to hold longs (bullish bets) and shorts (bearish plays) on the same token at the same time in the same account. These are treated as separate positions, not netted against each other.

That's a big advantage over a regulated venue like CME, which offers standard futures in which a single account is typically netted by default.