Perpetual futures vs dated futures: the differences

A dated future has an expiry date and settles against the spot price on that date, which pulls its price towards spot as the date approaches. A perpetual future never expires, so it uses regular funding payments between longs and shorts to stay close to spot instead.

Almost everything else about the two contracts is the same: both are leveraged, both have a long and a short side, both need margin and both can be liquidated. This guide explains the one difference that matters, what follows from it, and how it shows up in the data on our pages.

What the two have in common

A future is an agreement on a price for an asset without holding the asset. A trader who is long gains when the price rises; the short side gains when it falls. Both put up margin, a fraction of the position's value, and both can use leverage up to the venue's limit.

On Hyperliquid, for example, perpetuals are linear contracts: one contract is one unit of the underlying asset, the collateral is USDC, and the initial margin fraction is one divided by the leverage the trader sets.¹ The same margin logic applies to dated contracts on venues that list them. When an account's equity falls below the maintenance margin, positions are liquidated, whatever the contract type.

Expiry and convergence

A dated future, also called a delivery or quarterly future, carries its expiry in its name. Binance's quarterly USDⓈ-margined contracts, for example, expire on the last Friday of the quarter they are named after.² At expiry the contract settles against a settlement price derived from the spot index, and all positions in it are closed.

Because both prices must meet on that date, a dated future does not need any payment to stay close to spot. Before expiry its price can trade above or below spot, and that gap, the basis, narrows as the date approaches. A trader who wants to keep the same exposure past the expiry has to close the expiring contract and open the next one, which is called rolling.

Funding instead of an expiry date

A perpetual has no date on which its price must meet spot. Hyperliquid describes its perpetuals as derivatives without an expiration date that rely on funding payments to converge with the underlying spot price over time.¹

Funding works like this: when the perpetual trades above the spot oracle, longs pay shorts; when it trades below, shorts pay longs. On Hyperliquid the payment is made every hour.³ The payment makes the expensive side more costly to hold, which gives traders a reason to take the other side and pulls the price back towards spot. How the rate is built from the premium is on the funding rate page, and the guide funding rates and funding arbitrage explains intervals and annualising.

The two designs move the cost of the gap to different places:

• Dated future: the gap is part of the price. It is fixed when the position is opened and resolves at expiry.
• Perpetual: the gap is paid as it happens. It changes every interval and never resolves on its own.

Side by side

The perpetual column follows Hyperliquid's contract specifications and funding documentation.¹

Settlement on a perpetual: delisting and HIP-3

Perpetuals can still be settled, just not on a schedule. When Hyperliquid's validators vote to delist a validator-operated perpetual, positions settle to the one-hour time-weighted spot oracle price before the scheduled voting time, open orders are cancelled and no new orders are accepted.⁴

Builder-deployed markets (HIP-3) add a tool that blurs the line between the two types. A deployer can settle an asset with the haltTrading action, which cancels all orders and settles positions to the current mark price, and the same action can resume trading. Hyperliquid notes that this could be used to list dated contracts without going through the deployment auction for each new contract.⁵ In that case a dated contract is a perpetual market that its deployer settles on a set date.

What the difference means for the data

The contract type changes which numbers exist and how to read them:

• Funding exists only on perpetuals. Dated futures have no funding; their equivalent is the basis, which is in the price. On a perpetual the same gap is the premium, defined on the premium / basis page.
• Open interest has a cliff on dated futures. When a dated contract settles, its open interest goes to zero at once, and positions that traders roll reappear in the next contract. Perpetual open interest only falls when positions are closed or liquidated, which makes it easier to read as a continuous series.
• Prices of different expiries differ. Two dated contracts on the same asset trade at different prices because their basis has different time to run. A perpetual has one price per venue.

Of the two contract types, our data covers perpetual futures only. The markets screener lists every perpetual we collect with price, open interest and funding, and each coin's positioning tab shows open interest and funding over time. Dated futures and their quarterly basis are not collected.

Frequently asked questions

Do perpetual futures ever expire?

No. A perpetual has no expiry date and a position can stay open as long as its margin allows. A venue can still settle a market, for example when it delists it.

Why do perpetuals pay funding but dated futures do not?

Because a dated future is settled against spot on a fixed date, its price has to converge without any payment. A perpetual has no such date, so funding is the mechanism that keeps its price close to spot.

Can a perpetual trade far from the spot price?

For a while, yes. The gap is the premium, and while it lasts the side holding the expensive position pays funding every interval. Venues cap the rate per interval, so even a very large gap costs at most the capped rate for each interval it lasts.