Perpetual Futures: Access, Risk and Fund Questions

Minimum investment varies by plan. Entry-level plans start from as low as $10 USD. View each plan's detail page for the exact investment range.

Fund investments are locked for the plan's stated duration. Early withdrawal is not available. At maturity, principal and net returns are automatically settled to your primary balance.

Allocated capital is held in exchange accounts controlled by the fund and deployed into each plan's delta-neutral book — matched spot and perpetual legs on the venues the engine trades, including Binance and Kraken. Positions stay inside the plan mandate for the lock period. At maturity, principal and net returns settle automatically to your primary balance.

No. Lock-period return and target annualised ranges are modelled on historical funding rate data. They are targets, not forecasts. Actual returns depend on live market conditions, including periods when funding rates go negative, and may be lower or higher than the target range.

The fund engine runs daily, ingesting real funding rate and basis data from Binance and Kraken. It selects assets, weights them by opportunity score, and models returns for each investment. Daily P&L is bounded within the plan's configured lock-period return range over the investment lifecycle.

Each plan has a transparent fee schedule including a management fee (applied to principal), a performance fee (applied to positive returns only), and estimated trading/slippage costs. These are displayed on each plan's detail page and deducted before returns are credited.

Lending and stablecoin yield products pay interest and carry borrower or protocol risk. This strategy earns a market-structure spread and carries exchange and execution risk instead. Neither is safer in general — the risks are different, and these returns vary rather than being fixed.

Low risk plans use conservative asset selection with stricter drawdown limits and larger reserve ratios, targeting lower but more stable returns. Medium risk plans balance yield and stability. High risk plans target a wider annualised range using broader asset universes — with correspondingly higher return variability.

The main ones are negative funding regimes, basis compression from crowding, execution slippage between the two legs, liquidation risk if the perpetual leg's margin is stressed, and exchange counterparty risk — capital must sit on trading venues to run the strategy. Exchange risk is the largest tail exposure and cannot be diversified away by holding more assets.

A market-neutral strategy that collects the periodic funding payment exchanged between long and short holders of perpetual futures. Matched spot and perpetual positions of equal size leave price exposure roughly flat, so the return comes from the payment rather than the move.Read the full guide

It depends on the funding regime. In sustained positive funding with clean execution, the spread is capturable. Crowding compresses it, and in negative-funding periods the primary leg earns nothing. It is not a fixed-yield product.

A position built so that a price move produces roughly equal and opposite P&L on each leg, netting close to zero. Direction stops being a variable, and the return comes from the funding payment instead.

When the perpetual trades below spot, the funding rate inverts and shorts pay longs. A standard long-spot/short-perpetual position pays out rather than collects. The book stays active: exposure is cut inside drawdown limits, rotated toward assets still paying positive funding, or held and absorbed within the plan's risk band. Negative funding periods are a normal feature of the market, not an exception.

Staking earns a protocol-defined reward for securing a network, and lending earns interest from a borrower. Both carry the price risk of the asset you hold. Funding arbitrage earns a market-structure spread and is hedged against price direction — but adds exchange counterparty risk and execution risk that staking does not have. Different return sources, different risk profiles; neither is strictly safer.

A futures contract expires on a set date, and its price converges to spot as that date approaches. A perpetual never expires — the funding rate does the anchoring instead, which is what creates the recurring payment.

The difference between an asset's spot price and its futures or perpetual price. A positive basis means the contract trades at a premium, negative at a discount. Basis and funding rates move together. → Glossary

Funding is paid several times a day on most venues, at intervals each exchange sets for itself. Schedules differ by exchange and by contract, and a venue can change its own. Whatever the interval, the payment moves between traders — and it is separate from when your plan settles.

A futures contract obliges both sides to settle at the agreed price. An option gives the buyer the right but not the obligation, in exchange for a premium paid upfront. Futures carry symmetric risk; an option buyer's loss is capped at the premium.

Not in the same way. A CFD charges overnight financing to your broker. Perpetual funding is paid between traders — longs to shorts, or the reverse — and the direction flips with market positioning. Nobody collects it as a platform fee.

Taking offsetting positions to capture a price or rate difference rather than a directional move. It covers spot-versus-perpetual spreads, funding rate capture, and price gaps between exchanges. The common feature is that the return does not depend on the market rising.

"Perp" is short for perpetual futures contract: a derivative tracking an asset's price with no expiry date. Rather than settling on a date, it uses a funding payment between longs and shorts to stay anchored to spot.

VectorTraders is operated by Vector Traders LLC (Registration No. 20268120018), a duly registered company which professionally operated market-neutral fund. Capital is deployed on major licensed trading venues, every plan publishes its mandate, fees and risk band before you invest, and daily P&L is calculated from live market data.

U.S. residents may access certain perpetual futures products through appropriately regulated and authorized trading venues. Availability depends on the specific product, trading venue, and applicable U.S. regulatory requirements.
VectorTraders does not provide access to unregistered or unauthorized perpetual futures products to U.S. residents. Where applicable, trading activities are conducted through regulated venues and in accordance with the requirements applicable to the relevant jurisdiction and product.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approved an order for KalshiEX to list the BTCPERP Contract, marking the first time a U.S.-regulated exchange can offer a true bitcoin perpetual futures contract.

Do you offer managed accounts or customised mandates? Yes, for qualified clients. A customised mandate can vary the strategy mix, asset universe, risk parameters and reporting beyond what the standard plans allow. Eligibility criteria apply. → Talk to the institutional desk

Strategy following is available to qualified clients as an alternative to a pooled plan. Structure, terms and eligibility differ from the standard plans. → Talk to the institutional desk