Polymarket has expanded its business from event prediction contracts to perpetual contracts. The new service is currently available to international users who are legally permitted to use the product, with an initial launch of 10 markets covering crypto assets, precious metals, crude oil, and U.S. stock indices, offering up to 20x leverage. U.S. users are currently not eligible for this international perpetual contracts service.
Initially covering 10 markets
According to the platform’s announcement, the initial tradable assets include BTC, ETH, SOL, Hyperliquid’s HYPE token, and markets such as gold, silver, West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq 100. Users can take both long and short positions.
Polymarket says its new product aims to bring perpetual trading for crypto assets, stock indices, and commodities together on a single interface. However, the platform did not disclose complete data such as total trading volume, open interest, and margin size at launch.
- The initial market coverage includes cryptocurrencies, commodities, and stock indices.
- Maximum leverage is 20x.
- The actual leverage limit varies depending on the contract and position.
Perpetual contracts and event contracts run in parallel.
After this launch, Polymarket’s product line is no longer limited to event contracts. Event contracts typically settle based on whether a specific outcome occurs, such as whether Bitcoin will be above a specified price at a certain time; perpetual contracts, on the other hand, directly track the price of the underlying asset without a fixed expiration date.
The platform states that positions can be held as long as the account's margin requirements are met. Perpetual contracts also use a periodic funding rate mechanism to keep the contract price closely aligned with the reference price. When the contract price is above the reference index, funding payments are typically made from longs to shorts; when it is below the reference index, the payment direction is usually reversed.
Due to the use of leverage, position sizes can exceed the actual margin deposited by the user. With 20x leverage, $1 of margin can correspond to up to $20 in notional exposure, amplifying profits and losses proportionally to price movements. If margin falls below required levels, the platform may trigger liquidation.
Infrastructure and regulatory constraints are advancing in tandem.
Alongside the launch of derivatives, Polymarket is also enhancing its trading system's processing capacity. Previously disclosed targets aim to increase system capacity to 200,000 orders per second—approximately 15 times the previous throughput—with further architecture upgrades planned to scale beyond 400,000 orders per second.
The platform previously adjusted the settlement methodology for short-term crypto event contracts. An August update revealed that, following research into trading behavior during settlement windows, Polymarket implemented a time-weighted price mechanism. At the time, the research identified 821 accounts that collectively profited $8.2 million during periods suspected of manipulation. Subsequently, 5-minute contracts began using a 30-second average price, while 15-minute and 4-hour contracts adopted a 60-second average price, with price data provided by Chainlink Data Streams.
In the U.S. market, Polymarket’s perpetual futures service continues to operate separately from its U.S. business, in accordance with restrictions tied to its 2022 settlement with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). At that time, regulators determined that Polymarket had offered event-based binary options without proper registration. In response, Polymarket paid a $1.4 million civil penalty and agreed to restrict U.S. users’ access to its international platform.
Alternatively, Polymarket has been operating a platform regulated by the CFTC in the United States and will open general access to U.S. users in May 2026. However, this U.S. platform is distinct from the perpetual contracts interface being launched for international users.