Crypto Derivatives Explained: Futures, Perpetuals and Options
Last Updated: September 16, 2026
Crypto derivatives are contracts that follow the price of a coin without transferring the coin itself, and perpetual futures are the biggest segment: Binance Futures alone held $31.6 billion in open interest on September 15, 2026. In options, Deribit held 428,428 BTC of bitcoin open interest, about $32.3 billion, on September 16.
The three main crypto derivatives are perpetual futures, dated futures and options. Each lets you go long or short, hedge a holding or use leverage without owning the asset, but they differ in expiry, settlement and how far losses can run. Perpetuals have no expiry and rely on funding payments, which we compare in perpetual swaps vs futures. Dated futures settle on a fixed date, and options give a right rather than an obligation, as explained in our guide to crypto options. Almost every derivatives trade involves margin, so read how leverage trading works before you size a position. The last row of the table covers EVEDEX, whose crypto derivatives contract specs include perpetual futures only.
Crypto Derivatives Compared: Perpetuals, Futures and Options
| Contract | How it works | Market data | Used for | Main risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perpetual futures | No expiry date; funding payments between longs and shorts keep the contract near the index price | Binance Futures: $31.6B open interest and 589 perpetual pairs; Hyperliquid: $14.18B open interest and 404 pairs | Leveraged long or short positions held for hours or weeks, and hedges without a roll date | Liquidation when margin runs out, plus funding costs that add up while the position stays open |
| Dated futures | Fixed expiry; on Deribit they settle at 08:00 UTC on a 30-minute average of the index, with no coin delivered | Deribit BTC futures: $907.1M open interest across 11 expiries from September 17, 2026 to June 25, 2027 | Hedging to a known date and basis trades between the future and the spot price | Positions must be rolled into a new contract, and far expiries trade with less liquidity |
| Options | A call or put gives the right to buy or sell at a strike price; Deribit options are European style and cash settled | BTC options open interest: Deribit 428,428 BTC, about $32.3B; OKX 35,249 BTC, or $2.66B | Defined-risk bets, portfolio insurance and trades on volatility rather than direction | Buyers can lose the whole premium to time decay; sellers can lose far more than they collect |
| EVEDEX | Perpetual futures only, matched off-chain and settled on Arbitrum; no dated futures or options | $678.6M open interest and $647.6M 24-hour volume across 52 perpetual pairs | Long or short positions on crypto, stocks, gold, oil and FX; 200x only on BTC-USD, ETH-USD and SOL-USD for positions up to $50,000 notional | Liquidation and funding costs, only 52 pairs |
Data as of September 16, 2026 for options and dated futures, from the market data from Deribit and OKX, snapshot at 08:13 UTC with the BTC index at $75,474. Perpetual futures open interest, pair counts and EVEDEX volume as of September 15, 2026: CoinGecko, converted at $76,888 per BTC. Settlement rules: Deribit Insights on options and futures expiry. EVEDEX leverage: EVEDEX trading terms.
How Perpetual Futures, Dated Futures and Options Work
A derivative moves money between two sides of a contract based on a price, so the coin never changes hands. What differs is when the contract ends and what each side owes.
Perpetual futures never expire. To stop the contract drifting away from the market, exchanges charge a funding rate: when the perpetual trades above the index, longs pay shorts, and when it trades below, shorts pay longs. The payment is small per period, but it repeats for as long as the position is open, so a trade held for weeks on the crowded side can cost more in funding than in trading fees.
Dated futures end on a fixed day. Deribit, for example, listed 11 bitcoin futures expiries on September 16, 2026, from the next day out to June 25, 2027. Each contract expires at 08:00 UTC and settles on a time-weighted average of the Deribit index between 07:30 and 08:00 UTC, so the price converges with spot as expiry approaches. The gap before that, called the basis, reflects demand for leverage and the time left to expiry. On Deribit, these dated contracts held $907.1 million in open interest against $793.1 million on its BTC perpetual, so fixed-expiry contracts remain widely used there.
Options give the buyer a right, not an obligation. A call pays off if the price ends above the strike, and a put pays off if it ends below. On Deribit, one bitcoin option covers 1 BTC, options are exercised only at expiry, and only the profit is paid in cash. Its 898 open BTC option series spanned daily, weekly and monthly expiries. Calls held 276,107 BTC of open interest and puts 152,321 BTC, a put-to-call ratio of 0.55: open calls outnumbered open puts by almost two to one.
A Worked Example: Leverage, Liquidation and Option Premium
The arithmetic below uses round numbers and ignores fees and funding, so treat it as an illustration rather than a quote from any exchange.
A leveraged future. You post $1,000 of margin and open a 10x long, a $10,000 position, on bitcoin at $75,000. If bitcoin rises 5%, the position gains $500, which is 50% of your margin. If it falls 5%, you lose $500. A simple estimate of the liquidation price for this long is the entry price multiplied by one minus one divided by leverage, plus the maintenance margin rate. With a 0.5% maintenance margin, that is $75,000 × 0.905, or about $67,875, a drop of roughly 9.5%. At 50x, the same formula puts liquidation less than 2% away.
A bought option. Suppose instead you pay a hypothetical premium of $1,500 for a call with an $80,000 strike. Your maximum loss is the $1,500 premium, whatever happens to the price. At expiry, this call on 1 BTC breaks even at $81,500 and gains $1,000 for every $1,000 bitcoin settles above that level. The seller of that call keeps the $1,500 if bitcoin settles below $80,000, but its loss has no fixed ceiling if the price keeps rising, which is why option selling needs far more margin than option buying.
Why Traders Use Crypto Derivatives
Traders turn to derivatives for six main reasons.
- Hedging A holder of bitcoin can short a perpetual or buy a put to protect against a fall without selling the coins, keeping long-term exposure while limiting short-term losses.
- Short selling A short future profits when the price drops, without borrowing the coin first, which spot markets require.
- Capital efficiency Margin lets a trader control a larger position with less capital, freeing the rest for other positions or a stablecoin reserve.
- Trading volatility Options gain or lose value with expected volatility, so traders can position for a big move or a quiet market regardless of direction.
- Basis and funding trades When dated futures trade above spot or funding runs high, traders buy spot and short the future or perpetual to earn the difference, accepting execution and venue risk.
- Access without custody Derivatives let traders follow an asset's price without holding it in a wallet, which also removes the need to manage keys for every coin they trade.
Risks to Check Before You Trade Derivatives
Leverage magnifies gains and losses equally, and a liquidation can close a position at the worst point of a move even if the price recovers an hour later. Funding on perpetuals and the roll cost on dated futures reduce returns on positions held for a long time. Option buyers lose value every day as expiry approaches, and option sellers carry losses that can exceed their margin in a sharp move. Exchange risk matters too: check how the venue handles margin, liquidations and auto-deleveraging, where your collateral is held, and whether the platform is available in your jurisdiction. Start with small positions and low leverage until you have seen how a liquidation and a funding payment show up in your account.
Crypto Derivatives on EVEDEX: Perpetual Futures Only
EVEDEX is a hybrid exchange for perpetual futures: orders are matched off-chain, and settlement runs on-chain on Arbitrum. It does not list options, dated futures or spot markets, so there are no calls, puts or expiry dates to manage. The exchange offers 52 perpetual pairs, including BTC, ETH and SOL, five stocks, Tether Gold (XAUT), silver, WTI oil, EUR/USD and USD/JPY, all tradable 24/7 with USDT margin and a 6 USDT minimum deposit. Leverage reaches 200x only on BTC-USD, ETH-USD and SOL-USD for positions up to $50,000 notional and steps down on other pairs. Fees are 0.015% maker and 0.045% taker before cashback of up to 35% on your own trades. Funding is calculated every eight hours and settled in eight equal parts each hour, positions use cross margin, and a $500,000 ADL Protection Reserve has operated since July 18, 2026. On September 15, 2026, CoinGecko showed $678.6 million in open interest on EVEDEX. If you need options, use a dedicated options venue; if you want a perpetual position on crypto, stocks or commodities, compare the contract specs first. Perpetual futures carry a high risk of loss.
