What Is Forex Trading? Pairs, Sessions and Perpetuals
Last Updated: September 21, 2026
What is forex trading? Buying one currency while selling another through a quoted pair such as EUR/USD, aiming to profit from the exchange-rate move. The market traded $9.6 trillion a day on average in April 2025, per the Bank for International Settlements — the world's largest financial market. EVEDEX lists two of those pairs, EURUSD and USDJPY, as perpetual contracts.
A currency pair quotes one unit of the base currency in the quote currency: EUR/USD at 1.1480 means one euro buys $1.1480 (EVEDEX, September 21, 2026). Participants range from central banks and commercial banks to hedge funds, exporters hedging revenue and retail speculators. Because most trading happens over the counter across time zones, the market runs in sessions and closes for the weekend, unlike the metals perpetual explained in what is XAUUSD. EVEDEX's own forex market sits on the forex trading page.
New to margin trading? Start with forex trading for beginners for a worked example, or check whether the costs still make sense in is forex trading profitable. For the wider line-up beyond FX, see crypto futures on EVEDEX.
What Is Forex Trading? Spot Brokers vs. EVEDEX Perpetuals
The table below lines up how a spot or margin position at a traditional forex broker compares with trading the same currency exposure as a perpetual contract on EVEDEX.
| Feature | Spot/Margin Forex Broker | EURUSD/USDJPY Perpetual (EVEDEX) |
|---|---|---|
| Market structure | Over-the-counter network of banks and liquidity providers, with the broker as counterparty or agent | Off-chain order book matching with on-chain settlement on Arbitrum |
| Trading hours | Around the clock on weekdays; closes Friday 5pm ET and reopens Sunday 5pm ET | 24/7, including weekends, with no scheduled close |
| Currency pairs offered | Dozens of majors, minors and exotics, depending on the broker | 2 pairs: EURUSD and USDJPY |
| Overnight cost | Swap or rollover rate charged once a day, and it differs for long and short positions | Funding rate reset every 8 hours and debited in one-eighth steps each hour |
| Margin currency | Usually the account's base currency — USD, EUR or another fiat currency | USDT only, under cross-margin |
| Maximum leverage | Capped by the regulator, e.g. 30:1 for retail clients under ESMA rules in the EU | Up to 75x on EURUSD and USDJPY, stepping down as position size grows |
| Trading fee | Usually built into the spread rather than charged as a separate commission | 0.015% maker / 0.045% taker per side, before up to 35% cashback |
| Drawbacks | Regulatory leverage caps and swap costs erode returns on positions held for weeks; most retail accounts lose money (see below) | Only 2 FX pairs, no fiat deposit or withdrawal, and margin held only in USDT |
Data as of September 21, 2026. FX turnover: BIS Triennial Survey. EU retail leverage cap: ESMA restriction on CFDs. Broker weekly close: OANDA trading hours. EURUSD/USDJPY price, leverage and fees: EVEDEX trading terms.
Why the Forex Market Runs on Sessions
Spot forex has no central exchange. Instead, trading passes between four overlapping financial centers as the trading day follows the sun:
- Sydney opens the week and covers early Asia-Pacific flow.
- Tokyo adds Japanese yen liquidity and overlaps briefly with Sydney.
- London is the deepest session, handling the largest share of daily turnover.
- New York overlaps with London for several hours — the busiest, tightest-spread window of the day.
That relay runs continuously from Sunday evening to Friday evening (US Eastern Time), then stops: banks close their trading desks for the weekend, liquidity providers stop quoting, and brokers halt new orders until the market reopens. The $9.6 trillion in average daily turnover the BIS recorded in April 2025 is spread unevenly across this cycle — thin in the Sydney-only hours, densest during the London-New York overlap, when spreads at most brokers are at their narrowest for the day. That same overlap is also when most scheduled economic data lands, which is why volatility and volume tend to spike together in those few hours rather than staying flat around the clock.
The weekend break has a practical cost: when trading resumes on Sunday evening, the price can gap up or down from where it closed on Friday if news broke while the market was shut, and a stop-loss set at Friday's price won't necessarily fill at that level. A market that runs on human trading desks needs a break; a market that settles by smart contract, like EVEDEX's EURUSD and USDJPY perpetuals, does not, which is why those two contracts trade 24/7 with no Friday close and no weekend gap risk of that kind.
From Spot Exposure to a Perpetual Contract
A spot forex position and a perpetual contract track the same exchange rate, but the mechanics underneath differ in three ways:
- No expiry, no rollover. A perpetual contract never settles or expires, so there's no rollover process — the funding rate replaces the swap as the ongoing cost of holding the position.
- Funding instead of swap. A broker charges one swap rate per day, usually different for longs and shorts. EVEDEX resets the funding rate every 8 hours and debits one-eighth of it each hour, so the cost accrues continuously rather than in a single daily debit.
- Margin in one asset. A forex account can hold margin in several currencies; EVEDEX positions are margined only in USDT, under cross-margin, so gains and losses across all open positions share the same collateral pool.
A small worked example shows the difference in costs: opening and closing a $1,000 EURUSD position on EVEDEX as a taker on both sides costs $0.90 in fees before cashback (0.045% × 2 × $1,000), and up to 35% cashback brings that down to about $0.59. A forex broker instead builds its cost into the spread — often around 1 pip on EURUSD, which on the same $1,000 notional is roughly $0.10, plus whatever the daily swap adds if the position is held overnight. Neither model is cheaper in every case; it depends on holding period and how the broker prices its spread.
The trade-off is coverage: a forex broker can offer 20 or more pairs, while EVEDEX lists only EURUSD and USDJPY among its 52 markets. It's a way to hold FX exposure inside the same account as crypto, gold, oil and stock perpetuals — not a full replacement for a dedicated forex broker.
Trading EURUSD and USDJPY on EVEDEX
EVEDEX runs EURUSD and USDJPY as perpetual futures, matched off-chain and settled on-chain on Arbitrum, with margin posted in USDT and a minimum deposit of 6 USDT. Both pairs trade 24/7 with no weekly close, up to 75x leverage that steps down as position size grows, and maker/taker fees of 0.015% and 0.045% before a cashback of up to 35%. The funding rate resets every 8 hours and is debited in one-eighth steps each hour, on both long and short sides. On September 21, 2026, EUR-USD carried $2.27 million in open interest and $688,737 in 24-hour volume, and USDJPY-USD carried $1.89 million in open interest and $752,071 in 24-hour volume, according to CoinGecko — a fraction of spot forex turnover, since EVEDEX is a derivatives venue with 52 pairs total, not a currency exchange.
There's no spot forex, no options and only these two currency pairs — traders who need broader FX coverage, hedging tools or fiat funding still need a dedicated broker. What EVEDEX adds is a way to hold EUR/USD or USD/JPY exposure in the same USDT-margined account as gold, oil, US stocks and 39 crypto perpetuals, without opening a separate brokerage relationship. Perpetual futures carry a high risk of loss.
