Polymarket Perps: How the New 20x Leverage Perpetual Futures Work

On September 3, prediction market platform Polymarket opened a new product called Perps. These are perpetual futures on cryptocurrencies, metals, oil and even stocks, with leverage up to 20x. Within a few hours the number of available markets grew from 10 to 67, though traders based in the US still can't touch the product.

What Exactly Did Polymarket Launch?

Perps mark a new step for the platform, which rose to fame during the 2024 US presidential election on the back of simple yes-or-no bets. The starting lineup included Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, the HYPE token, gold, silver, WTI oil, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indices, and a contract tracking SpaceX shares. Within hours of launch, the list expanded to 67 markets. It's the company's first move well beyond its usual binary bets in its entire history.

Polymarket first teased a product like this back in April, when the leverage cap sat at just 10x. By September, the company had doubled that ceiling for part of the lineup. In its own promotion of the launch, Polymarket pitched a combined play. For example, go long Bitcoin, bet on the Fed's next move and short the S&P 500's reaction, all from one account. The company also claims the deepest liquidity and lowest fees among crypto perps venues, though that claim is hard to verify independently for now.

How Does a Contract With No Expiration Date Work?

Polymarket's classic contracts settle based on an actual event. They either go to zero or pay out a dollar per share once the outcome is known. Perps work differently. A contract simply tracks the price of its underlying asset with no end date at all.

To keep the contract price from drifting away from real quotes, a so-called funding rate gets recalculated every hour between long and short traders. It anchors the contract to spot and is capped at 4% per hour in either direction. The logic is standard across perpetual futures markets. When the contract trades above the real asset price, longs pay shorts, and when it trades below, the payments flow the other way. That mechanism keeps the Perps price from drifting too far from spot for long.

How Much Leverage Is Available, and When Does Liquidation Hit?

The available leverage depends on the asset type. Crypto, the S&P 500, gold, silver and oil top out at 20x. Individual stocks and other tokenized real-world assets, including Tesla, Nvidia, Apple and Coinbase among 36 listed equities, are capped at 10x.

• Crypto, S&P 500, gold, silver, oil: up to 20x leverage
• Stocks and other tokenized assets (Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Coinbase and 36 more): up to 10x leverage
• The funding rate shifts payments between longs and shorts every hour and is capped at 4% in either direction
• Maintenance margin sits at half of the maximum leverage rate

That last point is what really defines the risk on a maxed-out position. Since maintenance margin equals half of 20x, a fully leveraged position can get liquidated after losing roughly 2.5% of its posted collateral. On most spot exchanges a drop like that would barely register, but here it can wipe out a trader's deposit entirely.

Why Are US Traders Left Out?

Polymarket's own documentation bars order placement in Perps from the United States, Canada, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Crimea, and the occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. US traders get routed instead to Polymarket US, a separate exchange regulated by the CFTC.

That split traces back to 2022, when Polymarket settled with the CFTC over accusations of running an unregistered swaps facility. The company was fined $1.4 million and ordered to wind down noncompliant contracts. It has since returned to the US market, just in a far more limited form. Splitting an offshore product with a full feature set from a separate, restricted US exchange has become a common playbook for crypto platforms trying to grow globally without clashing with the CFTC.

What This Means for Traders

Rivals already beat Polymarket to the home market. The CFTC approved Kalshi's Bitcoin perpetual futures contract back on May 29, more than three months before Perps launched, and Kalshi has since filed for similar contracts on a dozen altcoins plus a separate copper contract.

The bigger test is Hyperliquid, the decentralized exchange that already dominates on-chain perpetuals trading. According to President Donald Trump, that platform is also in talks with the CFTC about a formal entry into the US market. If that happens, Polymarket will have to compete with two strong rivals at once on the market that matters most to it.

For traders outside the US, Perps means one more venue to trade leveraged Bitcoin, index and commodity futures from a single account. At the same time, the combination of high leverage and a thin cushion before liquidation makes this one of the riskier instruments in the crypto market. Whether Polymarket's claimed deep liquidity and low fees can hold up against Kalshi and Hyperliquid should become clear within the next few months.