{"id":17404,"date":"2026-09-11T09:23:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T09:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.btse.com\/blog\/?p=17404"},"modified":"2026-09-11T09:23:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T09:23:25","slug":"stock-perpetual-futures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.btse.com\/blog\/stock-perpetual-futures\/","title":{"rendered":"Stock Perpetual Futures: The Complete Guide to Trading Stocks 24\/7 With Leverage"},"content":{"rendered":"

What Are Stock Perpetual Futures?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Stock perpetual futures are contracts that let you trade a stock’s price movement with leverage, 24\/7, without ever owning the share. You go long or short on where the price is headed, and the position never expires; you hold it as long as your margin covers the funding payment (<\/span><\/span>BTSE: Perpetual Contracts<\/span><\/a><\/span>).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For a trader based in Taipei, Singapore, or Manila, that opener matters more than it sounds. U.S. markets run roughly 9:30 p.m. to 4 a.m. in those time zones, which for him is the middle of the night.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Opening a brokerage account with a U.S. or Korean broker as a non-resident is its own project, and once it’s open, moving money in usually means a wire transfer, a currency conversion, and a multi-day wait.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Stock perps skip all three: fund with a stablecoin you already hold, trade the position the moment the news breaks, whenever that happens to be, and manage it from the same account you use for crypto.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perps on Stocks, Is That a Thing?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Yes, and if the phrase sounds unfamiliar, that’s just because “perps” spent their first several years as a crypto-only term.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The mechanism works directly: a perpetual futures contract tracks an underlying asset’s price through a <\/span>funding rate<\/b>, a small payment exchanged between long and short position holders on a regular schedule (every 8 hours on BTSE) (<\/span><\/span>BTSE: Funding Fees<\/span><\/a><\/span>).\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When the contract trades above the real stock price, longs pay shorts; when it trades below, shorts pay longs. That constant back-and-forth is what keeps a contract with no expiry date anchored to a real-world price it never actually settles against.<\/span><\/p>\n

Applied to a stock, index, or commodity instead of a cryptocurrency, nothing about that mechanism changes; the contract just tracks TSLA or gold instead of BTC.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stock Perps vs. Tokenized Stocks vs. CFDs vs. Options<\/span><\/h2>\n

These four products all promise “trade a stock without a brokerage account,” but they work in meaningfully different ways:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/div><\/th>\n
Stock Perps<\/b><\/span><\/div><\/th>\n
Tokenized Stocks<\/b><\/span><\/div><\/th>\n
CFDs<\/b><\/span><\/div><\/th>\n
Options<\/b><\/span><\/div><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
What you hold<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
A derivative contract tracking price<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
Depends on issuer; some are backed by real shares held in custody, some aren\u2019t<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
A derivative contract tracking price<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
A contract giving the right (not obligation) to buy\/sell at a set price<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Expiry<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
None<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
None (if backed 1:1, behaves like the share itself)<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
Typically none for major CFD providers<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
Fixed expiration date<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ownership rights (dividends, voting)<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
No<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
Sometimes, if fully share-backed<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
No<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
No<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Funding mechanism<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
Periodic funding rate<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
None if share-backed; varies otherwise<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
Overnight financing charge<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
Premium paid upfront<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Where it trades<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
24\/7 on the exchange offering it<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
Varies by issuer\/platform<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
Typically follows underlying market hours; some providers extend hours<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
Follows underlying exchange hours<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Leverage<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
Yes, exchange-set limit<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
Typically no, unless combined with margin separately<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
Yes<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
Built into the structure (via premium)<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The question people actually mean to ask here is: <\/span>“are tokenized stocks backed by real shares?”<\/b>, and the honest answer is: it depends entirely on the specific product and issuer, since some tokenized-equity platforms hold real shares in custody 1:1 and others don’t.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Stock perps sidestep that question entirely, because there’s no claim to an underlying share to begin with, it’s a price-tracking contract, full stop, which is a different trade-off than tokenized stocks, not a better or worse one on every dimension.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can I Trade Stocks, Indices, Metals and Commodities From One Platform, 24\/7?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Yes. On BTSE, stock perps, a gold perpetual, and crypto perpetuals all sit in the same futures wallet, funded and settled in USDT or another stablecoin (<\/span><\/span>BTSE: Stock and Gold Perpetual Futures Are Now Available<\/span><\/a><\/span>).\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

You’re not opening a separate brokerage account for equities, a separate commodities account for gold, and a separate exchange account for crypto, one wallet, one margin balance, one 24\/7 market across all three asset classes.<\/span><\/p>\n

That matters most for the exact moments markets don’t cooperate with your schedule: a Fed rate decision dropping at 2 p.m. ET while you’re asleep in Taipei, a Korean chipmaker’s earnings landing after the KOSPI has already closed for the day, gold spiking on a geopolitical headline over a weekend.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A single cross-asset account means reacting to any of those doesn’t require deciding which of three separate logins to open first.<\/span><\/p>\n

How Leverage, Margin and Liquidation Work on Stock Perps<\/span><\/h2>\n

Leverage lets you open a position larger than your deposited margin by borrowing the difference from the exchange (<\/span><\/span>BTSE: Leverage<\/span><\/a><\/span>).\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Stock perps on BTSE go up to 50x, a separate, lower cap than the leverage available on major crypto pairs like BTC or ETH, which matters if you’re used to thinking in crypto-leverage terms and carrying that assumption over to a stock position.<\/span><\/p>\n

The trade-off leverage creates is simple to state and easy to underestimate in practice: the higher the multiplier, the smaller the adverse price move needed to wipe out your margin and trigger liquidation. Here’s what that looks like at three different leverage levels, using a hypothetical $1,000 margin deposit on a $100 stock, in isolated margin mode:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Leverage<\/b><\/span><\/div><\/th>\n
Position size controlled<\/b><\/span><\/div><\/th>\n
Approximate adverse move to liquidation*<\/b><\/span><\/div><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
5x<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
$5,000<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
~20%<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
20x<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
$20,000<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
~5%<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
50x<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
$50,000<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n
~2%<\/span><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


\n*This is a simplified illustration of the relationship between leverage and liquidation distance (roughly 1 \u00f7 leverage), not an exact figure, actual liquidation price also depends on the maintenance margin requirement and any fees or funding accrued, both of which narrow the buffer slightly further in practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

The practical reading of that table: at 5x, a stock would need to move a full fifth against you before liquidation, the kind of move that typically takes a real catalyst (an earnings miss, a guidance cut). At 50x, a move that size happens inside a single volatile trading session, sometimes inside a single hour around a news event.<\/span><\/p>\n

Margin mode matters just as much as leverage here.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Isolated margin mode<\/b> ring-fences each position with its own dedicated collateral, capping your maximum loss on any one trade at the amount you assigned to it, a loss there stays contained to that position.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Cross margin mode<\/b> works differently, and more aggressively, than it might sound: all your open positions (crypto, stock, and commodity alike) share a single unified margin pool.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If your account’s overall margin ratio drops below the maintenance threshold, BTSE’s liquidation engine closes <\/span>all open positions at once<\/b>, not just the one that triggered it (<\/span><\/span>BTSE: Introduction to Stock & Commodity Perps on BTSE<\/span><\/a><\/span>, FAQ #3; <\/span><\/span>BTSE: Liquidation and Partial Liquidation<\/span><\/a><\/span>).\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A losing stock perp position can force liquidation of unrelated crypto or commodity positions sitting in the same cross-margin pool, even ones that were profitable moments earlier. Cross margin improves capital efficiency by letting gains on one position offset margin pressure on another, but it also means risk isn’t isolated to the trade that caused it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Neither leverage level nor margin mode is inherently the “right” one; it’s a function of how confident you are in the timing of a move, how much of a swing you can tolerate being wrong about, and whether you want a loss on one position to have any chance of dragging down the others. Sizing down as leverage goes up isn’t a suggestion so much as the math working exactly as designed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Funding Rates on Stock Perps: What Happens Overnight and on Weekends<\/span><\/h2>\n

A stock perp’s funding payment triggers every 8 hours, on a fixed schedule, regardless of whether the underlying stock exchange happens to be open at that moment (<\/span><\/span>BTSE: Funding Fees<\/span><\/a><\/span>). That’s a deliberate design choice, not an oversight: since the entire point of a stock perp is trading around the clock, the mechanism that keeps its price anchored to reality has to keep running around the clock too.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

While Nasdaq, the KOSPI, or the HKEX are closed, BTSE’s market makers continue providing liquidity on the perp contract itself, so the contract keeps trading and price-discovering even without a live reference market feeding it in real time (<\/span><\/span>BTSE: Stock Perps on BTSE, The 10 Questions Traders Ask Most<\/span><\/a><\/span>).\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Liquidity on some names can thin outside the underlying market’s usual hours, but the order stays fillable; you’re not locked out of managing a position just because the exchange the stock is listed on happens to be shut.<\/span><\/p>\n

One mechanic worth understanding specifically: dividends. Since a stock perp gives you price exposure without ownership, you don’t receive a dividend payment directly, but the expected price impact of an upcoming dividend gets built into the contract’s pricing and funding rate, so the economic effect of the payout is still reflected in the numbers even without a check landing in your account.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s a subtler version of the same core idea behind funding generally: the contract doesn’t own the asset, so every real-world economic fact about that asset (the closing bell, a dividend date, an earnings release timed for after hours) has to be represented synthetically through price and funding rather than through direct ownership.<\/span><\/p>\n

Which Stocks Can You Trade as Perps?<\/span><\/h2>\n

BTSE’s stock and commodity perp catalog has grown quickly since launch, and new listings are added regularly; this list reflects what’s confirmed live as of this pillar’s publish date. Check the <\/span><\/span>futures markets page<\/span><\/a><\/span> for the current full roster.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

AI & Semiconductor<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n