Futures Trading

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Capabilities

• Up to 100x leverage — Adjustable per account via the leverage endpoint. Allowed values: 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100.
• Cash-settled — profit and loss is the difference between entry and exit price; no physical delivery of the underlying asset
• Hedge Mode — Hold simultaneous long and short positions on the same pair (check mode, update mode)
• 270+ perpetual pairs — BTC_PERP, ETH_PERP, and more
• Funding rates — Periodic settlement between long and short holders (funding history)
• USDTB bonus collateral — Platform-granted bonus collateral token usable for futures margin (not depositable, not withdrawable)
• 6 order types — Limit, Market, Stop-Limit, Trigger-Market, OCO, Bulk-Limit (details)

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Who Uses This

• Hedge funds — Delta-neutral strategies, funding rate harvesting, directional leveraged trades on perpetual contracts
• HFT / Prop trading firms — High-frequency futures strategies with colocation (3–5 ms latency)
• Quantitative developers — Programmatic position management, cross-margin optimization, automated hedging

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Common Integration Patterns

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Risk Mechanics

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Margin Modes

• Cross Margin — All available collateral in the account backs every open position. Higher capital efficiency, but a single losing position can affect the entire account balance.
• Isolated Margin — Each position has a fixed margin allocation. Losses are capped at the isolated margin amount. Other positions and the remaining collateral balance remain unaffected.

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Liquidation

• Mark price is used for liquidation calculations (not last traded price) — reducing the risk of liquidation from temporary price wicks
• Partial liquidation is the primary mechanism: only a portion (e.g., 20–30%) of the position is closed first to restore margin. If partial liquidation is insufficient, full liquidation follows.
• Liquidation sequence: margin positions first (smallest to largest initial margin value) → crypto borrowings → futures positions last
• Maintenance Margin Rate (MMR): 3% for leverage 1x–10x. Per-market leverage limits and collateral brackets: collateral brackets page
• The API returns a liquidationPrice field in position responses — monitor the liquidation price alongside collateral balance
• When a position is liquidated, the collateral allocated to the position is lost

Coming soon: Detailed mark price methodology and liquidation price formulas will be published here. For institutional inquiries, contact institutional@whitebit.com.

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Funding Rates

• Settlement occurs periodically — Long holders pay short holders (or vice versa) based on the funding rate
• Positive rate = longs pay shorts (contract price above index). Negative rate = shorts pay longs.
• Fetch the current predicted funding rate for any pair via GET /api/v4/public/futures
• Fetch historical funding rates via GET /api/v4/public/funding-history/{market}
• Fetch account-specific funding payments via POST /api/v4/collateral-account/funding-history

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USDTB

• Usable as margin for futures positions
• Cannot be deposited or withdrawn — granted through platform promotions or programs
• Appears in the collateral account balance alongside USDT and other collateral assets

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Technical Overview

• Account & Balance — Balance, balance summary, account summary, leverage, hedge mode (6 endpoints)
• Order Management — Limit, bulk-limit, market, stop-limit, trigger-market, OCO, cancel (7 endpoints)
• Order Queries — Conditional orders, OCO orders (2 endpoints)
• Position Management — Open positions, close position, position history, funding history (4 endpoints)

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What’s Next