Traditional futures expire. A trader who wants to hold exposure past the expiry has to roll into the next contract, paying the spread and friction each time. A perpetual removes the calendar entirely. No expiry, no rollover, no contract to manage. The position simply stays open as long as it’s kept sufficiently margined.

The structure was pioneered in crypto markets, where it became the dominant form of derivatives trading and the majority of derivatives volume. What worked in crypto is now being applied to traditional assets. Equity Perpetuals are that structure, applied to stocks, commodities and the equity-style ETFs that trade like them.

What Makes it an Equity Perpetual

An Equity Perpetual tracks the price of an equity or an equity-style instrument. The underlying can be a single stock like NVDA or TSLA, an index ETF like SPY or QQQ, a commodity ETF like GLD or USO, or a crypto-linked ETF. The trader never holds the underlying. The value of the position rises and falls with the underlying’s price according to protocol-enforced rules. A one percent move in the underlying is a one percent move in the position’s notional, scaled by whatever leverage the trader has set.

Because there’s no asset to deliver and no expiry to settle, an Equity Perpetual is purely an exposure instrument. It exists to express a view on price, up or down, with a capital efficiency that holding the underlying outright can’t match.

How Funding Keeps it Anchored

A contract that tracks a stock’s price needs a mechanism to stay tied to that price. For a perpetual, that mechanism is the funding rate. It’s a small payment exchanged periodically between the two sides of the market. When the perpetual trades above the underlying, longs pay shorts. When it trades below, shorts pay longs. The payment makes the offside of any divergence expensive to hold, which continually nudges the contract back toward the real price.

Funding replaces the role that expiry and settlement play in a traditional future. Rather than converging to spot on a fixed date, a perpetual is pulled toward spot continuously, by the steady economic pressure of the funding exchange.

Leverage, Margin, and the Short Side

Two features define how an Equity Perpetual is used.

1. The first is leverage. A position is opened against margin, which is collateral posted as a fraction of the position’s notional. That lets a trader control exposure well beyond the capital committed, with the highest leverage available on the deepest, most liquid markets.

   
   

2. The second is direction. An Equity Perpetual can be sold short or bought long. That makes it the natural instrument for hedging a long or expressing a bearish view.

Leverage cuts both ways, and honesty about that is part of using the instrument well. The same multiple that amplifies a gain amplifies a loss. A position that falls below its maintenance margin is liquidated. The discipline an Equity Perpetual rewards is position sizing and risk management.

Trading Around the Clock

A traditional stock stops trading when its exchange closes. An Equity Perpetual does not. It trades continuously, including the nights, weekends, and holidays when the underlying market is closed.

To make that safe rather than merely possible, Arcus applies off-hours guardrails when the underlying is closed. Positions take more margin to open after-hours. Price moves are held within bands that widen only under genuine pressure. And funding holds at the closing-hour rate rather than swinging on thin volume.

The effect is that real news still moves the market, while a quiet weekend can’t cascade into forced liquidations.

What an Equity Perpetual is For

An Equity Perpetual is built for active exposure. It suits a trader taking a directional view with leverage, an allocator hedging an existing long, or anyone who wants to short a name rather than simply hold it. It isn’t built for someone who wants to hold a stock cleanly and sit on it. That’s what a Stock Token is for. The two are designed to be used together, not as substitutes.

Where Arcus Fits

Arcus lists Equity Perpetuals as a native category, alongside perps on stocks, crypto, commodities, and indices, all from one cross-margined account settled on-chain. Positions are margined in USD, with leverage and risk parameters set per market to each name’s liquidity and volatility. Equity Perpetuals trade continuously across every market from day one. Stock Tokens are also available for spot exposure.

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Arcus is a blockchain-based smart contract protocol that permits self-custodial peer-to-peer trading of Stock Tokens, cryptoassets and perpetual futures.  Arcus is not a regulated financial services provider, and it is not available in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom and other restricted jurisdictions.

Stock Tokens are tokenised securities issued by Robinhood Assets (Jersey) Limited under its Tokenised Products Programme. They are created and redeemed by the Issuer, with subscriptions, redemptions and/or distributions facilitated by Bitstamp Global Ltd as an Authorised Participant where specified. Stock Tokens provide economic exposure to a relevant underlying equity instrument or ETP through a contractual claim against the Issuer for a cash Redemption Amount linked to that underlying, but they do not confer ownership of the underlying or shareholder rights, including voting rights, direct dividend rights, or rights in the insolvency or administration of the underlying issuer. Stock Tokens involve risks not present, or not present to the same extent, in traditional stock ownership, including private-key loss or compromise, limited redemption access, liquidity constraints, price or tracking divergences from the underlying, and uncertain or evolving regulatory treatment.

Trading Stock Tokens, cryptoassets or perpetual futures is risky and involves risks of loss, particularly when using leverage. DYOR. NFA.