Polymarket Launches 20x Leveraged Perpetual Futures Across Crypto, Stocks and Commodities

Polymarket announced the rollout of a perpetual futures (perps) service that lets eligible users trade with leverage of up to 20 times. The launch covers ten markets spanning cryptocurrencies, equity indices, and commodities.

Initial Market Offering

The first ten contracts include:

• Bitcoin (BTC)
• Ethereum (ETH)
• Solana (SOL)
• Hyperliquid’s HYPE token
• Gold
• Silver
• West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil
• S&P 500 index
• Nasdaq 100 index
• SPCX – a perpetual contract tracking SpaceX share price

Each contract supports both long and short positions. Leverage caps at 20x, though exact limits may vary by contract, position size and margin rules.

How Perpetual Futures Work

Perpetual futures have no fixed expiry; positions stay open as long as margin requirements are met. Funding payments are exchanged between long and short traders to keep contract prices close to their reference indices. If a contract trades above the reference price, longs typically pay shorts, and the direction reverses when it trades below.

Regulatory Scope

Access to the perps platform is limited to users in jurisdictions where the service is legally permitted. U.S. customers are excluded due to Polymarket’s settlement with the CFTC, which restricts U.S. participation in its international derivatives offering.

Infrastructure Enhancements

Polymarket is upgrading its order‑processing capacity, targeting 200,000 orders per second—a fifteen‑fold increase over its previous throughput—with plans to eventually exceed 400,000 orders per second. Reported testing showed a 10‑ to 20‑fold improvement in p99 latency, aiming to support the fast execution needs of leveraged trading.

Comparison to Existing Products

The new perps sit alongside Polymarket’s original event‑contract market. Unlike binary‑style prediction contracts that settle on a predefined outcome, perpetual futures track continuous price movements and remain open until closed or liquidated.