In the last month since our Poloniex Futures beta began, we’ve seen thousands of customers enable their Futures account and trade billions of dollars in demo money. We’ve quickly responded to customer feedback and added support for Level 1 customers, launched Poloniex Futures on our mobile apps, and made updates to our Futures APIs. We’re so thankful for the incredible support from our community and are thrilled to fully launch out of beta today!
Starting today, customers are able to transfer funds into their Futures wallet and begin trading Bitcoin futures directly from their Poloniex account on Poloniex Futures. With Poloniex Futures, customers can get up to 100x leverage while earning the highest maker rebates and paying lowest taker fees, no matter how much they’re trading. Learn more about Poloniex Futures on our website.
For our API traders, we provide an easy integration to interact with our Futures exchange through both REST APIs and Websocket Feeds. Both allow read access to public market data and private read access to your account. Private write access to your account is available via the private REST API. If you’re looking to get started with API trading, our sample Python script and trading strategies enable you to get started with API trading and tailor your strategy in minutes.
What are futures?
Futures, also called futures contracts, are agreements to buy or sell currencies, commodities, or other financial instruments at a predetermined price and time and can be cash settled or physically settled. When you buy or sell a crypto futures contract, you are interacting with a contract that represents the asset rather than the asset itself. Once the contract is exercised, the exchange of the actual asset occurs.
Perpetual contracts are similar to futures contracts but don’t have an expiration date. This means you can hold a position in a perpetual contract for as long as you’d like. The price of a perpetual contract is based on an underlying index price which means that perpetual contracts are often traded at a price that is similar to spot markets.
What are the benefits of trading futures?
Hedging: Short or go long in a futures contract to hedge against adverse price movements of the underlying assetPrice speculation: Futures contracts allow you to speculate on the direction of the underlying asset’s priceTrade with 100x leverage: You don’t need to put up 100% of the contract’s value amount when trading
