USDT-Margined Futures Index Price
Last updated: 12/02/2025
1. Overview
The KuCoin Futures Index Price reflects the overall price level of the underlying asset across major spot markets. It serves as a critical reference for calculating the Mark Price, funding fees, liquidation triggers, and contract settlement.
To ensure fairness and stability, KuCoin collects real-time spot data from multiple major exchanges and computes a weighted average. This helps minimize the impact of abnormal price movements from any single exchange.
2. Calculation Method
Index Price = Σ (Exchange A Weight × Exchange A Spot Price + Exchange B Weight × Spot Price + ... + Exchange N Weight × Spot Price)
The system retrieves real-time spot price data from the following major exchanges: Binance, Binance-Alpha, OKX, Bybit, KuCoin, Coinbase, Gate.io, Bitget, MEXC, Bitfinex, Kraken.
Exchange weights are determined based on multiple factors, including trading volume, turnover, depth liquidity, and price stability. Weights will be dynamically adjusted according to market conditions. For details, please refer to the Index Price page.
When data is missing or insufficient from certain exchanges, selected perpetual contract prices from mainstream exchanges may be incorporated to enhance index continuity and stability.
The Index Price is calculated and updated every 1 second to reflect the latest market conditions.
3.Abnormal Data Handling Mechanism
To prevent abnormal prices from individual exchanges from distorting the index, the system performs data validation and correction based on the following rules:
3.1 No Available Exchange Data
When no exchange price data can be retrieved, the system will use the latest contract trading price within a defined range as the index price,and apply smoothing to reduce sudden fluctuations.
3.2 Only One Exchange Quote Available
When data is available from only one exchange:
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If the exchange’s price is close to the contract price, the system will directly use it as the index price;
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If the deviation is large but persists for a period of time, the system will still adopt that exchange’s price.
3.3 Price Deviates More Than 5% From the Median
When prices from certain exchanges deviate by more than 5% from the median:
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Prices above the median are corrected to 1.05 × median;
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Prices below the median are corrected to 0.95 × median.
Corrected prices are then used for weighted average computation.
3.4 Data Retrieval Failure
If an exchange experiences data issues, API timeout, or network interruption, its data will be temporarily excluded and its weight set to 0.
3.5 Data Not Updated for an Extended Period
If an exchange’s order book price or quantity remains unchanged for a prolonged period,the exchange will be temporarily removed from the index calculation to prevent outdated data from affecting results.Once its data updates normally again, it will be re-included in the calculation.
4. Calculation Examples
Example 1: Normal Case (5 Exchanges)
| Exchange | Spot Price (USDT) | Weight | Weight Percentage |
| Binance | 50,000 | 0.25 | 25% |
| OKX | 49,950 | 0.2 | 20% |
| Bybit | 50,050 | 0.15 | 15% |
| KuCoin | 50,020 | 0.25 | 25% |
| Gate.io | 50,000 | 0.15 | 15% |
Index Price = 0.25×50,000 + 0.20×49,950 + 0.15×50,050 + 0.25×50,020 + 0.15×50,000 = 50,004 USDT
Example 2: Deviation Correction (3 Exchanges)
| Exchange | Spot Price (USDT) | Weight | Corrected Price (USDT) |
| Binance | 50,000 | 0.1 | 50,000 |
| OKX | 55,000 | 0.7 | 52,500 (deviates from the median by >5%, corrected to 1.05 × median 50,000) |
| KuCoin | 49,000 | 0.2 | 49,000 |
Index Price = 0.10×50,000 + 0.70×52,500 + 0.20×49,000 = 51,950 USDT
Explanation:
OKX’s original price of 55,000 USDT deviated by 10% from the 50,000 USDT median, exceeding the 5% threshold. It was corrected to 50,000 × 1.05 = 52,500 USDT to reduce the influence of abnormal quotes.
Special Case:
If all exchange prices deviate by more than 5% from the median, the system selects the exchange with the smallest deviation from the previous index price as a reference. Other exchange prices are compared against this reference. If the deviation exceeds 5%, the price will be corrected accordingly.
Example: Reference exchange price = 48 Exchanges with excessive deviation will be corrected to 48 × 1.05.
5. Risk Warning
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The Index Price is used solely for determining the Mark Price and settlement and does not represent an executable market price.
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During extreme market conditions or exchange outages, the Index Price may temporarily deviate from actual tradable prices.
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KuCoin will continue optimizing data sources and weighting mechanisms to ensure fairness and accuracy.
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Users should manage leverage appropriately to avoid potential losses caused by price fluctuations.
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KuCoin reserves the right to take any necessary measures to control systemic risk without prior notice. These measures may include adjusting, adding, removing, or replacing constituents of the spot index to prevent market disorder caused by abnormal price deviations during high volatility. Such risk-control measures may increase users’ liquidation risk. Users should closely monitor the index price and take appropriate precautions. KuCoin shall not be liable for any loss or damage arising from these risk-control actions.