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Perpetra offers perpetual futures (perps)—derivatives without expiry. You speculate on price direction with leverage, without owning the underlying asset.

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Perps vs Spot

With 10x leverage on ETH at $3,000, you control $30,000 notional with $3,000 margin. Profit (and loss) are amplified.

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How Perpetra Works

Perps trade on a central limit order book (CLOB). Orders sit in a book at specified prices; trades match when buy and sell orders cross. Same model as a centralized exchange, but the book and its state are proven on-chain. The stack:
  • Venue — Lighter, a zero-knowledge order-book exchange with an official Robinhood Chain deployment
  • Matching — Handled by the Lighter protocol, with validity proofs published on-chain
  • Collateral — USDG, deposited into Lighter from Robinhood Chain
  • Interface — Perpetra: market data, charts, account tooling and order entry
Perpetra does not run a matching engine, a liquidity pool or a market-making desk. Order matching, margin, funding and liquidations are all the Lighter protocol’s. Perpetra is the interface you trade through, and it never takes custody of your funds.

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Markets

All markets are USDG-denominated. Collateral is USDG; PnL is in USDG. Caps run up to 50x on BTC, ETH, SPY and QQQ, and down to 3x on the thinnest markets. See Markets for the full list and parameters.

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Order Flow

  1. Place — Choose market, order type, size, and price (for limits)
  2. Match — Engine matches against the book
  3. Settle — Fill is recorded on-chain
  4. Position — Open positions show in your dashboard with live PnL
You can add to positions, reduce them, or close entirely. Partial closes are supported.

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Funding

Perpetual contracts don’t expire, but they need to track spot price. Funding rates handle that. Periodically (every 4–8 hours depending on the market), longs pay shorts or vice versa based on whether the perp trades above or below spot.
  • Perp premium → longs pay shorts
  • Perp discount → shorts pay longs
Funding shows in the UI. It’s factored into your cost basis when you close.