Polymarket Launches Perpetual Contracts for Bitcoin, Gold, and Major Indices

Polymarket launched its Polymarket Perps product on September 3, initially offering 10 contracts covering Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, HYPE, gold, silver, WTI crude oil, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100, and contracts tracking SpaceX stock. According to Odaily, the product expanded to 67 markets within hours. The contracts have no expiration date and track the underlying assets continuously, with hourly funding rates used to keep prices anchored to spot levels. The funding rate is capped at 4% per hour in both directions. Crypto assets, the S&P 500, crude oil, gold, and silver support leverage of up to 20 times, while individual stocks and other real-world assets support up to 10 times. U.S. traders cannot place Perps orders and are redirected to Polymarket US, which is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The arrangement stems from Polymarket's 2022 settlement with the CFTC, when the company was fined $1.4 million for operating an unregistered swap trading facility and was ordered to stop the noncompliant contracts.