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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.raydium.io/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

This page is an on-ramp for readers new to perps. If you already trade perpetuals on another venue, skip to order types.

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What a perpetual future is

A perpetual future (“perp”) is a leveraged derivative contract that tracks the price of an underlying asset but has no expiry date. You never hold the underlying — your position is a bookkeeping entry in the venue’s ledger that gains or loses value with the reference price. Two practical consequences:
  • You can go long (profit if price rises) or go short (profit if price falls). Spot only offers the long direction without borrowing.
  • You can keep a position open indefinitely as long as you maintain enough collateral. There is no settlement date that forces closure.

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Leverage

Leverage is the ratio between your exposure (notional value of the position) and the collateral committed to it. Example: BTC at 90,000 USDC.
  • Spot: 1 BTC costs 90,000 USDC of capital.
  • Perp at 10× leverage: the same 1 BTC exposure can be opened with ~9,000 USDC of collateral, with fees added on top.
  • Perp at 50× leverage: ~1,800 USDC.
  • Raydium Perps supports up to 100× on select markets.
Leverage multiplies both directions. A 1% adverse move at 50× leverage is a 50% hit to the collateral backing that position.

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Cross-margin

Raydium Perps operates in cross-margin mode only: every unit of collateral in your perps account is shared across every open position. There is no “isolate this position” toggle. Implications:
  • A profitable position can subsidize a losing one, delaying liquidation.
  • Conversely, a large loss in one market can eat into collateral that was supporting other positions and cascade-liquidate them.
  • If you want segregated risk between strategies, use different wallets — each wallet has its own perps account.

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One-way mode

You cannot simultaneously hold a long and a short on the same market. Placing an opposite-side order against an existing position will either reduce it or flip its direction. Example: long 1 BTC-PERP. Placing a market sell of 0.3 BTC-PERP reduces the position to 0.7 BTC long. Placing a market sell of 2 BTC-PERP closes the long and opens a 1 BTC short. To hold genuinely uncorrelated long and short exposure on the same underlying, use two different wallets.

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Liquidation

Each open position carries a maintenance-margin requirement — the minimum collateral-to-notional ratio that keeps the position alive. If your cross-margin ratio drops below that threshold (price moves against you, funding charges accrue, or another position’s P&L eats your buffer), the liquidation engine:
  1. Partially or fully closes positions at market, starting with the largest risk contributor.
  2. Charges a liquidation fee that goes to the insurance fund.
  3. Stops once your margin ratio is back above threshold, or all positions are closed.
Liquidations in fast markets can fill well beyond the nominal liquidation price — a volatile market can blow through multiple price bands before the engine finishes.

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Funding rate

Perps stay anchored to the spot reference price through a funding rate: a periodic payment between longs and shorts. When the perp trades above spot, longs pay shorts; below spot, shorts pay longs. The exact formula, interval, and cap are Orderly parameters; fetch them live from the market-data endpoint rather than hardcoding. Funding is settled against your USDC balance (not your collateral asset), even if your collateral is SOL or ETH.

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Slippage

Market orders in volatile conditions can fill at materially worse prices than the last-traded price suggests. Slippage risk goes up with:
  • Thinner order books (illiquid markets or low-conviction sides).
  • Larger order size relative to book depth.
  • Wider bid-ask spreads, typical during news events or overnight hours.
Rule of thumb: a market order sized at more than 20–30% of the opposite side’s top-of-book depth should be split or routed as scale / limit orders instead.

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Risk checklist before opening a position

  • Is my leverage appropriate for this market’s volatility? (BTC ≠ a small-cap altcoin perp.)
  • What’s my liquidation price? Most UIs display it; confirm it before confirming the order.
  • Is funding currently against my direction? A persistently expensive funding rate can erode a position faster than the price move earns it back.
  • Am I sizing on the assumption of zero slippage? Budget 10–50 bps slippage on entries into thin markets.

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Where to go next

  • Order types — every order shape the venue supports.
  • Collateral — what you can deposit and the per-asset caps.
  • Fees — maker / taker schedule plus withdrawal fees.
Sources:
  • Orderly Network trading documentation (underlying venue).
  • Raydium Perps product surface at perps.raydium.io.