Polymarket adds 20x perps for crypto, stocks and gold

Polymarket has launched perpetual futures across 10 crypto, equity, index, and commodity markets, allowing eligible international users to trade with leverage of up to 20 times.

Polymarket Perps opens with 10 markets

Polymarket said in its launch announcement that the new service gives traders one interface for perpetual futures linked to cryptocurrencies, stocks, market indices, and commodities.

The first 10 markets cover Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and Hyperliquid’s HYPE token. Traders can also take positions linked to gold, silver, West Texas Intermediate oil, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq 100.

SPCX, a contract tracking the price of SpaceX shares, completes the initial selection. Unlike buying shares through a stockbroker, an SPCX perpetual contract does not give its holder ownership, voting rights, or a claim on the company’s assets.

Users can open either long positions, which gain when the referenced price rises, or short positions, which gain when it falls. Polymarket has set the highest available leverage at 20x, but the precise limit can vary by contract, position size, and the platform’s margin rules.

Calling the product a venue with the “deepest liquidity, lowest fees,” the company did not provide comparative data in its announcement to support the claim. Polymarket also did not disclose full figures for trading volume, open interest, or deposited collateral at launch.

Perpetual futures differ from standard futures because they have no scheduled expiry date. Polymarket’s perps platform says a position can remain open while the trader continues to meet the required margin level.

Funding payments pass between long and short traders at regular intervals to keep each contract close to its reference price. When a perpetual contract trades above the underlying index, long traders generally pay short traders; the payment direction typically reverses when the contract trades below the index.

Leverage lets a user control a position worth more than the collateral posted. At 20x, each $1 of margin can support as much as $20 of exposure, magnifying both gains and losses. Polymarket states that positions remain active only while their margin requirements are met, meaning the platform can liquidate a trade after an adverse move reduces its available collateral.

The service takes Polymarket beyond event contracts

Adding perps gives Polymarket a second type of trading product alongside the event contracts on which it built its business. Prediction markets settle according to a defined outcome, while the new contracts track the changing price of an asset without an expiry date.

A Bitcoin event contract, for example, might ask whether $BTC will trade above a specified level at a set time. Its payout depends on whether the stated condition occurs. A $BTC perpetual future instead moves with Bitcoin’s reference price and remains open until the trader closes it or the platform liquidates the position.

The difference also applies to macroeconomic trading. Polymarket’s event markets may let users take positions on the result of a Federal Reserve meeting, while index, gold, or crypto perps let them trade the price movements that occur before and after the decision.

Offering both products gives users separate ways to express a market view, but the contracts carry different payout structures and risks. Event shares normally settle at a defined value after an outcome is confirmed, whereas a leveraged perp can generate ongoing gains or losses as its reference price moves.

Polymarket’s move follows similar product expansion by other trading companies. As crypto.news reported in September, Coinbase opened 23 crypto futures markets to eligible sophisticated and institutional investors in Canada, with leverage reaching 10x on supported contracts.

The Canadian service also includes products tied to gold, silver, oil, and the COIN50 crypto index. Coinbase provides the contracts through Coinbase Financial Markets, its U.S.-registered futures commission merchant, under an international exemption that does not open the products to Canadian retail traders.

Faster infrastructure supports heavier trading activity

Alongside the derivatives rollout, Polymarket has been working on changes intended to raise the number of orders its systems can process.

The company is targeting a capacity of 200,000 orders per second, according to earlier reporting on its trading infrastructure. The figure would represent about 15 times the platform’s previous throughput, while the underlying architecture is being prepared to eventually process more than 400,000 orders per second.

Tests cited in the report produced a 10- to 20-fold improvement in p99 latency, a measure that tracks the slowest group of transactions during periods of activity. Lower p99 latency can help an exchange process orders more consistently when trading volume rises, although Polymarket had not published a full independent performance assessment at the time of the report.

Execution and pricing controls carry added importance when a platform offers leveraged contracts. Small delays or short-lived price changes can affect margin calculations, liquidations and order execution, especially when a trader controls a position several times larger than the collateral supporting it.

In August, Polymarket changed the settlement method for its short-duration crypto event contracts after researchers examined activity around their final pricing windows. The platform adopted time-weighted prices following a study that identified 821 accounts with a combined $8.2 million in profits from settlement periods classified as likely manipulated.

Under the revised method, five-minute contracts use a 30-second price average, while 15-minute and four-hour markets use a 60-second average. Chainlink Data Streams supplies the pricing information, according to Polymarket’s August update.

U.S. access follows a separate regulatory route

Polymarket has limited its perps rollout to international users in locations where the service is legally available. American customers are not eligible to use the company’s international operation, including its leveraged perpetual futures interface.

The restriction stems from Polymarket’s 2022 settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The regulator found that the company had offered event-based binary options without registering as a designated contract market or swap execution facility.

Polymarket agreed to pay a $1.4 million civil penalty and wind down markets that did not comply with U.S. law. Under the settlement, the company also had to prevent U.S. customers from accessing its international platform.

A separate regulated operation provides Polymarket’s route into the American market. Its U.S. venue operates under CFTC oversight, but a contract submitted through the regulator’s self-certification process does not receive an express CFTC endorsement.

Self-certification allows a registered exchange to state that a proposed product complies with the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC rules. The commission can still examine a filing, request more information, or stop a contract from trading when it identifies regulatory concerns.

In June, the CFTC was preparing a new review framework for event contracts, including products tied to sports, political developments, and events involving war or violence. The proposed approach would let the agency examine certain contracts individually rather than relying only on restrictions covering an entire category.

State authorities have also challenged the treatment of some prediction products as federally regulated derivatives. Recent court disputes have focused mainly on sports contracts, with state regulators arguing that they resemble gambling products and therefore require state licenses.

By August, litigation over prediction markets involved 20 states, while Polymarket had generated more than $1 billion in revenue, according to a recent platform review. The company received approval to operate a U.S. designated contract market before opening general access to its American platform in May 2026.

The international perps interface remains separate from that U.S. venue. American users seeking leveraged derivatives must use products offered by CFTC-regulated exchanges and intermediaries, subject to the contracts, margin limits, and customer eligibility rules available through each registered provider.