On Monday, Malta-based Crypto Exchange, OKEx, launched a product which it says, ‘perfects’ its derivatives product suite. The ‘Perpetual Swap’ is a peer-to-peer virtual derivative with no expiry date, and daily settlement.
Letter Swap
In a fancy South Korean hotel ballroom, rife with media and guests shipped in from around the world, OKEx excitedly launched its latest product. I know how fancy it was because I was one of the guests who they thought it would be a good idea to invite… But why?
The first thing I learned is that I’ve been pronouncing OKEx wrong. Although to be fair, that happened the evening before the event whilst talking with a colleague. I had been saying “oh-kex,” but she pronounced it “oh-kay-ex,” which made much more sense considering the capitalization standards they use.
Turns out we were both wrong, as the CEO came out the next day and welcomed us on behalf of “oh-kay-ee-ex.” Go figure.
Perpetual Swap
Anyway, the new product sits in the product line-up somewhere between the traditional futures contract and spot trading. The big difference from a futures contract is the lack of expiry date, meaning positions can be held indefinitely.
Contracts are settled daily, and funding is charged or received for open positions 24 hours after settlement. Leverage is tiered based on the held number of positions but can be up to 100x on under 500 swaps. This is to minimize the market impact during the forced liquidation of oversized positions.
This is certainly not a tool aimed at novice traders.
Virtual Swap
If you aren’t really sure what all this means but would like to find out more, then you’re in luck. From now until the launch of the product on 11th December, OKEx are running a Perpetual Swap trading simulation competition.
Log into OKEx during the competition period, and go to the promotion page to sign up and join a team. You’ll receive 10 virtual BTC [coin_price] to play with, and the teams are ranked at the end according to profits and losses.
You can get early access, hands-on experience of the new product and a chance to win up to 10 BTC. And you can’t lose the shirt off your back, the keys to the Lambo, or your trophy (3rd) wife.
Which is nice!
What are your thoughts on OKEx’s new derivatives project? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock.