What is a perpetual future?
A perp is a contract that tracks an asset's price with no expiry. You can go long (profit if price rises) or short (profit if it falls). You never own the underlying asset.
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Perps, explained for the trenches.
Short, plain-language explanations for traders arriving from Pump.fun. Read these before you touch leverage.
What is leverage?
Leverage multiplies your exposure. At 5x, $200 controls a $1,000 position. Gains and losses are both multiplied: a 2% move becomes 10% of your margin.
What is liquidation?
If losses reduce your margin to the maintenance requirement, the position is closed automatically at the mark price. Higher leverage means a smaller move liquidates you. Example: at 20x, roughly a 5% adverse move can wipe the position.
Isolated vs cross margin
Isolated margin limits risk to the collateral on that position. Cross margin uses the whole account, so positions support each other but one bad position can drain the account.
What is funding?
Every hour, longs and shorts pay each other a funding rate that pulls the perp toward the oracle price. Positive funding: longs pay shorts. Holding a position for days can cost more in funding than you expect.
What is open interest?
The total size of open positions. Rising price with rising open interest suggests new positions entering; rising price with falling open interest often means shorts closing.
Mark, oracle, mid and last price
Mark price drives liquidations and PnL. Oracle price comes from external references. Mid is the order book midpoint. Last trade is the most recent fill. They differ, especially in fast markets.
What are HIP-3 markets?
Perps deployed by independent builders on Hyperliquid, each on its own perp DEX with its own markets, limits and oracles. They can be thinner and riskier than core markets.
Spot vs perps
Spot: you buy and hold the token. Perps: you hold a leveraged contract that can be liquidated and pays or earns funding. A memecoin bag and a 20x perp are very different risks.
HyperHunt is independent read-only market intelligence, not affiliated with Hyperliquid or Pump.fun. Nothing here is financial advice; leveraged trading can lose more than you expect.