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A perpetual future (“perp”) is a contract that tracks the price of an underlying asset without an expiry date. You take a long or short position with leverage, post collateral as margin, and pay or receive funding to keep the contract’s price anchored to the underlying. There is no settlement date and no delivery of the underlying — you hold the position as long as your margin supports it.
This section is conceptual. For request formats, fields, and live values, see the API reference.

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What you can trade

Arcus offers perps across several asset classes from a single account and a single collateral balance:
ClassExamplesUnderlying market hours
CryptoBTC, ETH, SOL, and other digital assets24/7 — always liquid, no off-hours regime
EquitiesSingle-stock perps (e.g. NVDA, TSLA, AAPL)US trading hours, with pre/post market
Commodity ETFsGold, silver, oil exposure (e.g. GLD, SLV, USO)The referenced market’s hours
Index ETFsBroad-market exposure (e.g. SPY, QQQ)The referenced market’s hours
New markets are added on an ongoing basis. The tradable set and per-market parameters (leverage, tick/step sizes) are served by the GET /v1/markets endpoint.

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Always-on markets

All Arcus perps trade 24/7 — including overnight, weekends, and holidays. Liquidity is deepest when the underlying market is open and can thin outside those windows, which widens spreads. Crypto perps run continuously with no special handling. For perps whose underlying has set trading hours (equities, commodity and index ETFs), Arcus applies an off-hours regime when that market is closed:
  • Funding switches from a live, market-driven rate to a fixed off-hours rate.
  • Initial margin requirements rise, so opening or growing a position off-hours takes more collateral.
  • Price bands limit how far the market can move while the underlying is closed, to curb liquidation cascades in thin liquidity.
See Funding and Margin for how each behaves.

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How the pieces fit together

Margin & leverage

Initial vs. maintenance margin, leverage, and the off-hours margin regime.

Liquidations

What happens when a position can no longer support its margin.

Oracle prices

How the reference price for each market is determined.

Funding

How perps stay anchored to the underlying, including real-world assets.

Real-world asset perps

24/7 leveraged exposure to equities, commodities, and indices.

Order types

Order types, time-in-force, and take-profit / stop-loss.

Fees

Trading fees and the fee-tier model.