Perpetual futures are derivative contracts without an expiration date that let you speculate on the price of an underlying asset, including crypto, ETFs, currencies, and commodities, without owning it. Unlike traditional futures, they use funding rate payments between long and short positions to keep the contract price aligned with the underlying asset's spot price. Robinhood offers both crypto perpetuals (e.g., BTC, ETH) and perpetuals on traditional assets (e.g., QQQ, Gold, WTI).

To meet regulatory requirements, you must pass an appropriateness assessment before trading perpetuals.

Questions cover general perpetuals knowledge, leverage and margin risk, and (for traditional asset perpetuals) topics like physical settlement and price gaps. If you do not pass, you will be directed to learning materials and can retry after a cooldown period.

The Appropriateness Assessment Matrix is used to evaluate a client's knowledge, experience, financial circumstances, customer intentions, risk awareness and tolerance to determine if trading derivatives is suitable for them. It assigns points based on answers to various questions, with maximum scores allocated to different categories.

Robinhood supports perpetual futures on both crypto and traditional assets such as ETFs, currencies, and commodities. You can view all the crypto assets and perpetual futures contracts supported on Robinhood directly in the app. You can find them in Explore, use the Search bar, or in the Perpetuals page.

• Buying Power refers to all funds that can be used on Robinhood for spot trading, perpetuals, or tokenized stocks.
• Available Margin is the amount of margin available for opening a new position and will fluctuate based on factors like position type (isolated/cross) and margin currency.

By default, Margin Required and Margin Available will be shown in USD as an estimate, with the option for you to see the actual EUR amount of margin being used from your Robinhood buying power. Buying Power is displayed in EUR and it reflects funds in your Robinhood balance that can be used to open new perpetuals positions, trade crypto, or buy tokenized stocks. Buying power is an input to Margin Available. Margin Available shows how much margin can be applied to trade a perpetual.

Liquidation states

• Partial liquidation: Occurs when the maintenance margin ratio exceeds 100%. Customers are liquidated until the MM reaches 50-75% of initial margin required.
• Close-out liquidation: Full liquidation occurs when a customer’s position has breached the close-out margin ratio requirement (which is 5% of position notional) or for position sizes less than €100 with an MMR > 100%. At this point, the position is fully liquidated.
• Auto-deleveraging (ADL): Profitable positions can be automatically liquidated to cover losses from other liquidations that cannot be fully covered by the market.
• Socializing losses: If a platform cannot cover losses from liquidations, the remaining losses are shared across other traders with open positions in the same contract.
• Automatic contract shutdown: If the market becomes unstable or in extreme circumstances, all positions in a contract may be liquidated.

Fees

• Liquidation fee: Charged 5 bps (0.05%) of total notional liquidated by the partner venue for partial or full liquidations.

Check out Perpetual futures fees for more information and details about other fees.

If you have open limit orders for a current 3x isolated BTC position and want to lower the amount of leverage on a new isolated position, you cannot adjust the leverage and must cancel the open limit orders first.

Take profit (TP) and stop loss (SL) orders automatically close your position (or part of it) when the price reaches a level you set in advance. They are an important risk management tool for trading perpetual futures because they let you act on a plan without monitoring the market constantly.

• A take profit order closes your position when the price moves in your favor, locking in gains.
• A stop loss order closes your position when the price moves against you, capping your losses.

You can set TP/SL when opening a position or at any time from the position detail page. You can enter them as a specific price, a percentage above/below your entry price, or a dollar amount above/below your entry price, whichever way you think about your trade.

Yes, you can place orders and manage positions on ETF, currency, and commodity contracts at any time, 24/7. However, the underlying markets for these assets have set trading hours.

This matters for a few reasons:

• Price gapping: The price may jump sharply when it reopens. For leveraged positions, this can trigger liquidation at a price very different from the last traded price.
• Funding payments: Funding is skipped when the underlying market is closed or outside of index publishing hours, and for 1 hour after it reopens. The funding countdown on the contract detail page always reflects the next actual scheduled payment.

Yes. If you close a position and realize a gain or loss, that outcome may be subject to taxes under your local tax laws.

Perpetual futures are complex derivative products, and trading involves significant risk and is not appropriate for all investors, particularly for perpetuals referencing assets which experience volatile price movements. Further, leveraged trading is risky as it can amplify the speed of your losses and increases the chance of you losing all of your initial investment. Please carefully consider if investing in such financial instruments is appropriate for you in light of your specific experience, risk tolerance, and financial situation. Restrictions and eligibility requirements apply.