Standard Futures vs Perpetual Futures: Settlement, Basis, Carry
Last Updated: September 15, 2026
Standard futures vs perpetual futures is a difference in how a contract ends. A standard future settles on a date and trades at a basis that shrinks to zero; a perpetual never settles and charges funding. On September 15, 2026, Deribit's March 2027 bitcoin future traded 2.54% above the index, while Binance perpetual funding ran at 0.009012% per 8 hours.
That single difference shapes everything else: how prices form along the calendar, what a hedge costs, and how a carry trade earns money. Standard futures, also called dated, quarterly or delivery futures, pack the market's price for time into one number you can see before trading. Perpetual futures turn the same idea into a stream of small payments that change every few hours. Both are margined, and leverage in futures trading sets how far price can move before liquidation. This guide follows each contract through its lifecycle, reads the bitcoin futures curve as it stood on September 15, 2026, and prices a $100,000 cash-and-carry trade with both instruments. The companion article on scenarios for active traders covers swing trades and hedges; this one stays with mechanics and cost.
For a directional long priced on the same data, see perpetual swaps vs futures. For execution basics, see our guide on how to trade crypto futures, and for the EVEDEX exchange model, how the perp DEX works.
Standard Futures vs Perpetual Futures: Contract Mechanics
| Criterion | Standard futures | Perpetual futures | On EVEDEX (September 15, 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lifecycle | Listed with a fixed expiry, traded until the last day, then settled and removed from trading | Listed once and traded indefinitely; individual positions end only when closed or liquidated | All 52 public pairs are perpetual contracts; no pair has a settlement date |
| Naming | The expiry is in the ticker, such as Deribit's BTC-26MAR27, which expires on March 26, 2027 | No date in the ticker, such as BTC-PERPETUAL on Deribit or BTC-USD on EVEDEX | Pairs are named by asset and quote currency, such as BTC-USD, with no expiry suffix |
| Price of time | Basis at entry: Deribit's March 2027 future traded 2.5445% above the index, 4.84% annualized | Funding each period: Binance BTCUSDT showed 0.009012% per 8 hours, about 9.9% annualized | Funding is calculated every 8 hours and charged or credited hourly in eighths |
| Term structure | Many expiries trade at once, forming a curve that shows contango or backwardation | One contract per asset, so the only term signal is the current funding rate | One perpetual per asset; no curve of dated contracts is available |
| Keeping exposure longer | Roll before expiry: sell the near contract and buy a later one, paying fees and a new basis | Nothing to roll; the position continues while margin covers losses and funding | No rollover; 0.015% maker and 0.045% taker fees apply only when you open or close |
| Worked example: $100,000 carry trade for 192 days | Buy spot and sell the March 2027 future: $2,544.50 of premium locked on day one | Buy spot and short the perpetual: $5,187 if funding stayed at 0.009012%, a loss of $1,151 at −0.002% | USDT-margined shorts are possible, but spot BTC for the long leg must be held elsewhere |
Data as of September 15, 2026, 11:52 UTC. Futures prices, index and expiries: Deribit. Perpetual funding: Binance. EVEDEX contract terms: EVEDEX docs and trading fees. Carry figures are before trading fees and hold funding constant for illustration.
How Each Contract Moves Through Its Life
A standard future is born with a death date. When an exchange lists it, the contract trades at whatever premium or discount the market sets for that date. As days pass, the premium shrinks, because on the final day the contract must be worth the settlement price. Deribit's bitcoin futures, for example, expire at 08:00 UTC on the date in their ticker. Anyone still holding the contract then is closed out at settlement, whether or not that suits their plan.
A perpetual has no such day. The exchange keeps one contract per asset and uses funding to stop it from drifting away from spot. The mechanism is continuous rather than scheduled: every interval, the exchange measures the premium of the contract over its index, adds an interest component and moves money between longs and shorts. Binance's API showed an interest component of 0.01% per 8 hours for BTCUSDT, and OKX's showed the same, with a cap of ±0.375% per period.
Margin works on the same principles for both. You post initial margin to open, the position is marked to market, and liquidation follows if equity falls below maintenance margin. The difference is that funding payments on a perpetual also draw down or add to that equity, so a long position in a market with high positive funding slowly loses margin even if the price does not move.
Reading the Futures Curve: Bitcoin on September 15, 2026
Because standard futures list several expiries at once, they show how the market prices time across the calendar. The table uses Deribit mark prices against its bitcoin index of $76,892.98 at 11:52 UTC.
| Contract | Days to expiry | Premium to index | Annualized basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| BTC-25SEP26 | 9.8 days | 0.12% above the index | 4.50% a year |
| BTC-30OCT26 | 44.8 days | 0.56% above the index | 4.52% a year |
| BTC-25DEC26 | 100.8 days | 1.37% above the index | 4.94% a year |
| BTC-26MAR27 | 191.8 days | 2.54% above the index | 4.84% a year |
| BTC-25JUN27 | 282.8 days | 3.85% above the index | 4.97% a year |
Every expiry traded above spot, and the premium grew with time to expiry, which is the definition of contango. The annualized figures in the table sat in a narrow band between about 4.5% and 5.0%, so the market was charging a fairly steady price for time. A perpetual cannot show this picture: it has one price and one funding rate. On that morning, the funding rate on Binance annualized to about 9.9%, roughly twice the curve, which tells you that long perpetual positioning was paying more for time than long futures positioning. The article on perpetual swaps vs futures prices a directional long on the same data.
Worked Example: A $100,000 Cash-and-Carry Trade
A carry trade earns the price of time while staying neutral to the price of bitcoin. You buy the coin and sell a contract of equal size, so gains on one leg offset losses on the other. Assumptions: $100,000 of notional, entry at 11:52 UTC on September 15, 2026, exit at Deribit's March 26, 2027 expiry, 191.84 days later, and results before trading fees.
- With a standard future. Buy $100,000 of spot bitcoin and sell BTC-26MAR27 at a 2.5445% premium. At expiry the future converges with spot, so the position earns $100,000 × 2.5445% = $2,544.50, or 4.84% annualized. The figure is known the moment the trade is placed.
- With a perpetual future. Buy the same spot bitcoin and short the perpetual. The short receives funding when the rate is positive. At a constant 0.009012% per 8 hours over 575.5 periods, it would collect $100,000 × 0.009012% × 575.5 = $5,187. At an average of 0.0045%, it would collect $2,590, about the same as the future. At an average of −0.002%, the short would pay $1,151.
- The trade-off. The standard future offers a smaller but certain return. The perpetual offered about twice the carry on that morning, but the rate is reset every period, and nothing guarantees it stays positive for six months.
Both versions tie up capital: the spot purchase plus margin for the short leg. Both also carry exchange and liquidation risk on the short, because a sharp rally raises the margin needed even though the spot leg gains. On EVEDEX, a perpetual short would be margined in USDT, while the bitcoin itself would have to sit on a different venue, since EVEDEX has no spot market. Before running any leveraged leg, check how leverage in futures trading changes the distance to liquidation.
Which Structure Fits Which Job
- Known cost to a known date fits a standard future, whose basis is fixed at entry.
- Open-ended exposure fits a perpetual, which avoids roll trades and settlement on a date you did not choose.
- Reading market expectations needs the futures curve; a perpetual offers only its current funding rate.
- Earning carry can use either: futures lock the return, perpetuals float it.
- Assets beyond bitcoin and ether often exist only as perpetuals; many venues, including EVEDEX and Hyperliquid, list no dated contracts at all.
Perpetual Futures on EVEDEX
EVEDEX sits entirely in the perpetual column of this comparison. Its 52 public contracts, spread across crypto, US stocks, commodities, currencies, an index and two pre-market names, have no expiry dates, so the tools in this article that depend on a curve, such as locking a basis or trading a calendar spread, are not available there. What it does provide is the perpetual half of a hedge or carry trade: USDT-margined longs and shorts on an order book matched off-chain and settled on Arbitrum L2, with every position drawing on one cross-margin balance and trading around the clock. The fee schedule is a flat 0.015% maker and 0.045% taker, funding is fixed per 8-hour window and paid out hourly, and leverage caps run from 200x, available on BTC-USD, ETH-USD and SOL-USD only below $50,000 of notional, down to 50x.
Limits that matter for carry and hedging: no dated contracts, no spot bitcoin for the long leg of a cash-and-carry trade, and no options. For the exchange model behind the contracts, see how the perp DEX works, and for execution basics, the guide on how to trade crypto futures. Perpetual futures carry a high risk of loss.
