perps · trading 101 · education

How to Go From Knowing Nothing to Your First Perpetual Futures Trade

June 9, 2026 · 5 min read

Have you ever read a sentence like “perpetual swap funding rates flipped negative as open interest diverged from spot” and felt your brain shut off and gloss over the words?

Yeah. Me too. And I’m not afraid to admit it.

Here’s the secret nobody in finance says out loud: the language is confusing ON PURPOSE.

If trading sounds like rocket science, you hand the “smarter” people your money (and their fees) and give up before you even try.

By the end of this article, I promise you’ll have everything you need to start trading without fear, and even start automating your trades!

What we’ll cover

What perpetual futures actually are
How perps are different from regular futures
Why traders love them (even with $100)
The rules of the game: leverage, funding, and liquidation
How to level up as a beginner with automation
A cheat sheet simple enough to teach from

In simple words, here’s what a perpetual future is:

A perpetual future is a bet on whether a price goes up or down, that you can hold as long as you want, without ever buying the thing itself. Like betting on a sports team winning or losing.

What even is a perpetual future?

Let’s unpack that sentence. When you buy a stock like $NVDA through a regular brokerage, that’s called spot trading: you own actual NVIDIA shares, and you only make money if the price goes up.

A perpetual future (traders call them perps) is different. You never own the asset.

You’re placing a bet on its direction: bet long if you think the price goes up, bet short if you think it drops. Price moves your way, you profit. Price moves against you, you lose.

Spot trading

You buy the horse. You own actual $NVDA shares, and you profit only if the price goes up.

Perpetual futures

You bet on the race. You own nothing, and can make profit on both price going up or down.

Here’s that difference in practice:

The setup

$NVDA is trading at $300. You have $300 to trade with.

The price jumps $30, up to $330 (a 10% move).

Two outcomes

Spot

your $300 bought 1 share

+$30

Perps at 50x

your $300 controls 50 shares of exposure

+$1,500

Same $30 move, same starting money, but different outcomes based on how you trade.

(And the exact same math applies on the way down.)

Let’s break down how you can make $1,500 on $300 with perps.

Step 1: Place a trade with 50x leverage betting the price will increase

Every box is $300. You bring one: that’s your deposit. At 50x leverage, the exchange unlocks 50 boxes for you to trade with: a $15,000 position.

your $300 deposit

↓ unlocks

the $15,000 position (50 boxes)

Step 2: Price increases 10%

$NVDA goes from $300 to $330. The whole 50-box position grows 10%, which mints five brand new boxes: $1,500 of profit. The position is now worth $16,500.

five new boxes = +$1,500 from the price move

Step 3: You close the trade and collect your profit

All 50 leverage boxes go back to the exchange. You keep your original box, plus the five green ones.

→ back to the exchange

→ yours: $300 + $1,500

You walked in with $300. You walked out with $1,800.

10% move × 50x leverage = 500% on your money.

Unlock the full guide

Unlock the rest of the article, where you learn the fundamentals, set up your first trade, and start automating it.