Polymarket opens perpetual futures trading with leverage of up to 20x
Polymarket has launched a perpetual futures product called Perps, widening its business beyond the yes-or-no election and sports markets that helped make the platform widely known during the 2024 U.S. presidential race. Trading opened on September 3 with 10 initial markets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, HYPE, gold, silver, WTI oil, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100, and a contract tied to SpaceX shares. According to Polymarket’s product page, that number expanded to 67 within hours.
The structure is different from the platform’s standard prediction contracts, which settle at either $1 or $0 after an event resolves. Perpetual futures track an underlying asset continuously, have no expiry date, and use an hourly funding mechanism between long and short traders. Polymarket says the funding rate is capped at 4% per hour in either direction. Its documentation sets maximum leverage at 20x for crypto, the S&P 500, oil, gold, and silver, while individual stocks and other real-world assets are capped at 10x.
The rollout does not include U.S. users. Polymarket’s FAQ says traders in the United States, Canada, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk cannot place orders. U.S. customers are instead directed to Polymarket US, the company’s separate CFTC-regulated venue. The launch also puts Polymarket into more direct competition with Kalshi and Hyperliquid.
