This page is educational and conceptual. The exact risk parameters (margin multipliers, price-band widths, funding intervals) are part of each market’s configuration and are read from the API, not documented here.
Why RWA perps
- 24/7 exposure. The underlying stock or commodity market is open only part of the week; the perp lets you take or adjust a position any time — overnight, weekends, holidays.
- Leverage and shorting. Go long or short with leverage, from the same USDG collateral you use for crypto.
- One account, many asset classes. Crypto, equities, commodities, and indices share a single balance and margin system.
Tracking total return
Holding a stock or commodity in the traditional world earns (or costs) more than the change in its quoted price — dividends, corporate actions, and the shape of the futures curve all matter. Arcus passes these through so the perp reflects what a holder of the underlying would actually experience, rather than drifting away from it. The adjustments flow through funding and the oracle price.Dividends
When a stock goes ex-dividend, its market price drops by roughly the dividend. On its own that would show up as a loss for a long. Arcus offsets it with a funding payment to longs, so the dividend isn’t lost — it’s reflected in the position’s return.Illustrative: a stock priced at $100 pays a $2 dividend and opens at $98. A long sees -$2 from the price move and +$2 from funding — net flat from the dividend itself, exactly as a holder of the stock would experience.
Splits
On a stock split or reverse split, open orders and a position’s price reference are adjusted by the split factor so the economics are unchanged.Illustrative: in a 2:1 split, a position of 100 units at $10 becomes 200 units at $5 — same exposure, same value.
Futures rolls
For markets built on futures, the contract being referenced changes on a roll schedule. Arcus accounts for the price difference between the contract rolled out of and the one rolled into and passes it through funding (“roll payment”), so your exposure stays continuous instead of jumping on roll dates.Trading when the underlying is closed
Outside the underlying’s regular hours, liquidity is thin and there’s no reliable external price to anchor to. Arcus keeps the market open but adds guardrails so off-hours trading stays orderly — without forcing liquidations on positions that were healthy at the close:| Guardrail | What it does off-hours |
|---|---|
| Fixed funding | Funding switches from the live, market-driven rate to a fixed base rate (SOFR + 0.5%), set at the close — so carrying a position overnight or over a weekend has a predictable funding cost. |
| Higher initial margin | Opening or increasing a position requires more collateral; maintenance margin is unchanged. See Margin. |
| Price bands | Trading and the mark price are limited to a range around the last regular-hours price, widening only gradually under sustained pressure — curbing liquidation cascades in thin markets. |
| Internal mark price | With no live external quote, the oracle follows a smoothed average of the order book’s own mid, bounded by the price bands. |
How price bands widen
The band starts narrow and can only widen in fixed steps — a0.5x → 1x → 2x → 4x multiplier ladder — under sustained one-directional pressure. Each expansion is gated by a 1-hour trading halt: the market pauses before it steps up to the next wider band, so a run can’t blow through every level at once.
How far price can travel inside the band scales inversely with leverage — a lower-leverage (better-collateralized) position is allowed a wider move. At full expansion, for example:
| Max leverage | Allowed move from the reference price |
|---|---|
| 10x | up to ±40% |
| 5x | up to ±80% |
Related concepts
Funding
How dividends, splits, rolls, and off-hours rates are applied.
Oracle prices
How the reference price is sourced when markets are open vs. closed.
Margin & leverage
Collateral, leverage, and the off-hours margin regime.
Liquidations
What triggers a liquidation and how off-hours bands help.