Crypto futures are forward contracts on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. They let you trade the price without owning the coins, bet on rising or falling prices and use leverage. The most common form is perpetual futures: futures without an expiry date that stay close to the spot price through a regular balancing payment, the funding rate. In Germany, futures trading is permitted for retail clients. Legally, futures are financial instruments under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive MiFID II, not crypto-assets under MiCA. You trade them on crypto exchanges that are additionally licensed as investment firms in the EU, or through your broker on futures exchanges such as CME and Eurex. How this works, what it costs and which providers are licensed is explained here.
Crypto futures in brief: the key figures
- A CME bitcoin future covers 5 bitcoin, the micro contract 0.1 bitcoin and the Eurex nano contract 0.01 bitcoin.
- Perpetual futures have no expiry date; at OKX the funding rate is settled every 8 hours.
- On OKX’s bitcoin perpetual, long positions paid at 92 percent of the 270 settlements from August 5...
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