Reference desk
Perpetual futures glossary
The language used across Novrinex, defined without assuming you already speak derivatives.
Definitions describe concepts, not universal venue rules.
Perpetual contracts use similar words for mechanics that can differ in formula, trigger price, timing, and account scope. Use this glossary to understand the concept, then verify the selected provider's current contract specification before acting.156
A
- Ask
- The lowest displayed price at which a seller is willing to sell.
- Auto-deleveraging
- A venue process that reduces selected opposing positions when liquidation and insurance resources cannot absorb a shortfall.
- Average entry price
- The quantity-weighted reference price assigned to the open portion of a position after one or more fills.
B
- Bankruptcy price
- A simplified venue-specific price where the collateral allocated to a position would be exhausted.
- Basis
- The difference between a derivative price and its underlying spot or index reference.
- Bid
- The highest displayed price at which a buyer is willing to buy.
- Bridge
- Infrastructure that transfers or represents assets and messages between blockchain networks.
C
- Collateral
- Assets assigned to support a margined position or trading account.
- Cross margin
- A margin mode where eligible account collateral is shared across positions.
D
- Depeg
- A sustained or temporary deviation from the reference value an asset is intended to track.
F
- Funding rate
- A periodic rate used to calculate payments between long and short perpetual traders.
- Funding interval
- The venue-defined period associated with one funding calculation or assessment.
I
- Index price
- A reference price derived from one or more external markets or data sources.
- Initial margin
- The minimum margin required to open a leveraged position.
- Insurance fund
- A venue-controlled pool intended to absorb certain liquidation shortfalls under published rules.
- Isolated margin
- A margin mode that assigns a defined amount of collateral to one position.
L
- Leverage
- The ratio between position exposure and the collateral supporting it.
- Limit order
- An instruction to trade at a specified price or better.
- Liquidation
- A venue-controlled position closure after equity falls below its margin requirement.
- Liquidation price
- A dynamic venue estimate of the price at which current account conditions would trigger liquidation.
- Long
- A position that generally gains when the contract price rises.
M
- Maker
- A trader whose resting order adds liquidity before it is matched.
- Maintenance margin
- The minimum venue-defined margin resource required to keep eligible exposure open.
- Mark price
- A fair-price estimate commonly used for P&L and liquidation calculations.
- Market order
- An instruction to trade immediately against available liquidity.
N
- Notional
- The total market value represented by a position.
O
- Open interest
- The total outstanding contract exposure that has not been closed.
- Oracle
- A system that delivers external data, such as asset prices, to a protocol.
P
- Partial fill
- Execution of only part of an order’s requested quantity.
- Perpetual future
- A margined derivative contract that tracks an underlying market without a fixed expiry.
- Post-only
- An order instruction that prevents immediate execution so the order only adds liquidity.
- Price impact
- The change in available execution prices caused by consuming liquidity with an order.
R
- Realized P&L
- Profit or loss recorded after some or all of a position is closed.
- Reduce-only
- An order instruction that can reduce an existing position but cannot increase or reverse it.
- Return on margin
- Unrealized P&L divided by the initial margin basis at entry. It is not the percentage move in the underlying market.
S
- Short
- A position that generally gains when the contract price falls.
- Sequencer
- Infrastructure that orders and submits transactions for some blockchain scaling networks.
- Slippage
- The difference between the expected execution price and the average price actually received.
- Spread
- The difference between the best displayed bid and ask.
- Stop-loss
- An order intended to reduce or close a position after a trigger condition is reached.
- Stop-limit order
- An instruction that becomes a limit order after its stop condition is reached and therefore may not fill.
- Stop-market order
- An instruction that seeks immediate execution after its stop condition is reached and therefore may fill beyond the trigger price.
T
- Taker
- A trader whose order immediately removes available liquidity.
- Take-profit
- An instruction intended to reduce or close exposure after a favorable trigger or target is reached.
- Token approval
- An onchain authorization allowing a specified contract to transfer tokens up to an allowance.
U
- Unrealized P&L
- The current estimated profit or loss on an open position.
- Unsettled P&L
- Profit or loss recorded in account equity but not yet converted into withdrawable USDC.
Source desk
Source 1 / U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission / accessed 28 July 2026Crypto Asset Perpetual ContractsSource 2 / U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission / accessed 28 July 2026Futures glossarySource 3 / U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor.gov / accessed 28 July 2026Types of ordersSource 4 / CME Group / accessed 28 July 2026Open interestSource 5 / Novrinex Research / accessed 28 July 2026Educational methodology and price assumptionsSource 6 / U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission / accessed 28 July 2026Futures market risk guidanceTerminology references
Definitions are normalized into plain language from these primary and authoritative references.