FAQ

Pricing

How does pricing work?

Perpetual futures contracts have two standard price components: mark price and oracle price. Mark price is used for margining, unrealized PnL accounting, SP/TL triggers, etc. The oracle price is used for funding rate calculations. There's a third price component specific to HIP-3 specification, which is used for price banding.

During on-hours, oracle pricing is based on an external reference (aggregated price feed of NYSE/NASDAQ pricing with deviation checks for each source provider).

During off-hours, oracle pricing is based on an internal / self-referential price that effectively serves as a smoothened historical average of the local orderbook price (EMA), similar to a traditional hyperp market.

Current mark price design is the median of three inputs: oracle, oracle + basis, and an automatic hl-inserted price. More details on pricing implementation can be viewed on this page: Single-Ticker Equities.

How soon can we get 24/5 pricing or 24/7 pricing?

On-hours pricing will support pre-hours and post-hours in the near future. Additional pricing during the day will be supported via pricing from ATS venues like Blue Ocean to get closer to 24/5. There is no plan for 24/7 on-hours pricing in the near future.

Risks

What are the primary risks to using Felix-deployed perps?

Oracle issues

Perp markets require robust pricing feeds. Stale updates or incorrect updates can result in failure to properly reflect real-time position accounting, which can result in unfair liquidations or bad debt.

Price manipulation

Equity perp markets are relatively new in their development. Off-hours pricing is particularly challenging as perpetual futures markets work best when there is robust external pricing. Generally, during off-hours, users will experience lower liquidity and wider spreads. This, along with self-referential pricing dynamics, creates more risk of price manipulation compared to the on-hours environment.

Off-hours pricing can be made more robust with various protections like price clamps and smoothened mark pricing. Initial versions of these protections are implemented in the Felix-deployed perp specifications. Safeguards always involve various tradeoffs - for example, a too laggy mark price that deviates from the local orderbook price can cause issues with healthy liquidations during moments of volatility.

Funding rate spikes

Off-hours pricing, which involves a self-referential oracle, generally means wider deviations between the local orderbook impact price and the oracle price. Wider gaps of these two variables result in higher funding rates. Felix-deployed perps have dampened funding rates during off-hours to manage this risk. This is an experimental design - user feedback is welcome.

Margin Asset (USDH)

What is the margin asset for Felix-deployed perps?

The margin asset is USDH by the Native Markets team.

Why should I use USDH?

USDH perp markets via Felix-deployed perps should be cheap and highly liquid, where users can get best execution.

Specific economic benefits:

• USDH markets have 20% lower taker fees

• USDH markets have 50% better maker rebates

• USDH markets have 20% more volume contribution toward fee tiers

• 50% of USDH revenue goes towards HYPE buybacks (HYPE holders benefit from USDH usage)

VIP Program

How do I access the VIP taker discounts program?

Power users of the Felix-deployed perps may qualify for the VIP program, in which they can access taker fee discounts. Reach out to the team via telegram or discord.