Equity Perps Explained: How Stock Perps Work and Break
Quick answer. Equity perps are perpetual futures on a stock, ETF or index, usually stablecoin-margined, with no expiry and no shares. Funding keeps them near the stock; when its market closes, venues price them from their own order books.
Video transcript
Equity perps trade around the clock on stocks that do not. Most of the risk sits in that gap.
An equity perp is a perpetual future on a stock, ETF or index, with no expiry. Funding keeps it near the stock. Holders get price exposure only, no shares or dividends.
When the stock is closed, venues price from their own order books. TradeXYZ uses three prices: external, oracle and mark.
On July 28, 2026, one thin SK Hynix print hit TradeXYZ's oracle. The mark fell 18.7 percent, and analysts estimated 57 to 80 million dollars liquidated.
Galaxy Research put it simply. The oracle worked. The risk system didn't.
Other failures are quieter. Bounds can defer liquidations. Stale prices can look fresh. Splits can settle positions and cancel stops. And USDC is not the same as a dollar.
In the US, single-stock perps are security futures. On November 3, 2026, the CFTC chairman said they were deemed approved. Offshore versions exclude US persons. This is not legal advice.
Before trading or building, ask who controls the oracle, how it prices off-hours, whether feed freshness is checked, and whether one print can move the mark.
Guardian's audit of Veranta's V2 perpetuals found a Pyth Lazer parsing flaw that could inflate an oracle price 100 million times.
Read the full article, or talk to Guardian about auditing your equity perp's price paths at guardian.security.
In 2026, stock perpetuals reached the largest crypto exchanges. Coinbase launched them for non-US traders on March 20, and Binance and Kraken list them too.
Equity perps trade around the clock on stocks that do not. Most of the risk sits in that gap.
This article explains the technical and security side of equity perpetuals and the US texts that cover them. It is not legal advice; confirm how it applies to you with counsel.
What an Equity Perp Is
A perpetual future is a cash-settled future with no expiry, held near the underlying price by funding.
When the contract trades above the stock, longs pay shorts; below it, the flow reverses, as Coinbase's CFTC filing explains.
An equity perp is not a share. TradeXYZ's disclosures say its perps carry no ownership, voting, dividend or redemption rights, and Binance says the same of its TradFi perps.
Dividends are not paid either. TradeXYZ says their effect is "reflected in pricing and funding" through arbitrage.
For tokens that claim real shares, see our tokenized stocks risks guide.
How Equity Perps Are Priced
Every equity perp needs a price for the hours its stock does not trade. TradeXYZ, which lists stock perps on Hyperliquid, splits the job across three prices.
- External price: the last fair price from the stock's own markets.
- Oracle price: the reference for funding.
- Mark price: used for margin, PnL, triggers and liquidations.
When the stock trades
TradeXYZ pulls US stock prices 24/5, from Sunday 8:05 PM to Friday 8:00 PM ET. That includes an overnight session from Blue Ocean ATS.
Its mark price is the median of three inputs.
- The oracle price.
- The oracle plus a 150-second average of the book's premium over it.
- The median of best bid, best ask and last trade.
Each relayer update can move the oracle and mark by at most 50 basis points.
When the stock is closed
TradeXYZ's oracle then moves with a 30-minute moving average driven by its own order book, starting from the last external price.
Lighter, an onchain perp exchange, switches to an order-book price once external feeds go stale, typically after one minute.
Since July 10, 2026, many Lighter stock markets, including NVDA, TSLA, AAPL and SPY, have no cap against the last oracle price.
An internal book is a fair price only while it is deep, as October 10, 2025 showed.
Discovery bounds
TradeXYZ limits the mark to plus or minus 1 ÷ max leverage around a reference price. A 20x market can move 5% at a time.
Near the edge, the reference re-anchors, up to a set number of resets per direction. Then the bound becomes a hard cap until external pricing resumes.
Its oil example allows up to about 15.8% up or 14.3% down before the hard cap. The docs tell traders to manage risk on that full range.
| Venue | Hours | When the stock is closed |
|---|---|---|
| TradeXYZ (Hyperliquid) | 24/7 | Order-book average inside discovery bounds |
| Lighter | 24/7 | Order-book average; many stock caps removed |
| Coinbase Derivatives (US filing) | Sunday 8 PM to Friday 5 PM ET | Does not trade |
Who Offers Equity Perps
| Venue | Type | What is on record |
|---|---|---|
| TradeXYZ | Hyperliquid HIP-3 | Stocks from the US, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, China and India |
| Lighter | Onchain order book | Equities, commodities and fixed income, 24/7 |
| Coinbase | Exchange, non-US | 24/7; up to 10x on stocks, 20x on ETFs; USDC settled |
| Binance | Exchange | Equity perps tied to SK Hynix and SOXL |
| Kraken | Exchange, non-US | Perps on tokenized equities, per Cointelegraph |
On Hyperliquid, HIP-3 lets a deployer that stakes 500,000 HYPE run its own perp markets.
The deployer sets oracle prices and leverage limits, and can halt a market and settle at the mark price.
Where Equity Perps Break
One thin print
On July 28, 2026, one SK Hynix share traded in Seoul's NXT pre-market at 29.96% below the prior close, Galaxy Research reported. TradeXYZ's oracle picked it up seconds later.
The perp's mark price fell 18.7%. Onchain analysts estimated $57 million to $80 million liquidated across about 960 accounts, per Galaxy. Profitable shorts were then auto-deleveraged.
TradeXYZ said its oracle "worked as intended" and called covering losses a "one-time discretionary decision." Galaxy's summary: "The oracle worked. The risk system didn't."
TradeXYZ's changelog now lists no pre-market window in external pricing for Korean stocks.
Bounds that defer liquidations
Under TradeXYZ's bounds, a position whose liquidation price sits outside the active range "cannot be liquidated while those bounds are in effect."
Stale prices that look fresh
Since March 23, 2026, Pyth carries a feed's last price forward during off-hours. Its docs tell consumers to check each feed's own update time.
Guardian's review of Veranta, a perp exchange that lists equities, found it checked only the payload header's timestamp (High, resolved).
A price carried forward for hours or days could pass every check.
Corporate actions
Hyperliquid does not support rescaling open positions for a stock split, TradeXYZ says. So TradeXYZ settles every position and reopens on the new share basis.
For Kioxia's 3-for-1 split, it settled positions at the Tokyo close on September 28, 2026, ahead of the October 1 effective date.
All orders were cancelled, stop-losses included. Traders had to reopen positions to keep exposure.
The settlement asset
TradeXYZ keeps margin and PnL in USDC. It warns that USDC "is not the same asset as a U.S. dollar," and no automatic adjustment necessarily covers a gap.
Regulatory Status in the US
Coinbase Derivatives' September 18, 2026 filing treats single-stock perps as security futures, under joint CFTC and SEC jurisdiction.
The exchange asked the CFTC to approve them and said it would list them shortly after approval.
On November 3, 2026, CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said equity perps were deemed approved as security futures. They can now trade on CFTC-registered exchanges also notice-registered with the SEC.
His statement names no exchange.
Offshore products exclude US persons: Coinbase's are "not available to US persons," Markets Media reported.
SEC staff said in January 2026 that a crypto asset that is a security-based swap cannot be sold to non-eligible contract participants unless a registration statement is in effect.
Those sales must also be effected on a national securities exchange. The staff statement has no legal force.
How to Assess a Venue
- Who sets the oracle, and who can change it?
- Which sessions feed the price, and how does it move when the stock is closed?
- Does the venue check each feed's freshness, or only a signed header?
- Can one print move the mark, or are last trade, index and fair value kept apart?
- How are splits and delistings handled, and what absorbs a failed liquidation?
- What does it settle in, and can you legally trade it where you are?
How Guardian Helps
Guardian's smart contract audits put two independent teams on the same scope, with invariant fuzzing beneath both.
On Veranta's V2 perpetuals, that found a Pyth Lazer parsing flaw that could inflate an oracle price 100 million times (case study).
Relayers and oracle scripts run offchain. Guardian's offchain automation pentest covers price-feed handling and staleness limits.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are equity perps?
Perpetual futures that track a stock, ETF or index. They have no expiry, settle in cash or stablecoins, and use funding payments to stay near the stock's price. Holders get price exposure only: no shares, votes or dividends.
Do equity perps pay dividends?
No. TradeXYZ says perp holders do not receive dividends; their effect shows up in pricing and funding through arbitrage. For a stock split, it settles every position and reopens the market.
Can US traders trade equity perps?
Not offshore: Coinbase's non-US stock perps exclude US persons. On November 3, 2026, the CFTC chairman said equity perps were deemed approved as security futures and can trade on US exchanges registered with the CFTC and SEC.
How are equity perps priced on weekends?
From the venue's own order book. TradeXYZ moves its oracle with a 30-minute moving average and bounds the mark around the last close. Lighter switches to an order-book price once external feeds go stale.
Sources
- trade[XYZ] Docs: Oracle Price, Mark Price and External Price (accessed November 6, 2026)
- trade[XYZ] Docs: Discovery Bounds (accessed November 6, 2026)
- trade[XYZ] Docs: US Stocks (accessed November 6, 2026)
- trade[XYZ] Docs: External Pricing for Korean Equity Assets (accessed November 6, 2026)
- trade[XYZ] Docs: Corporate Actions and the Kioxia Stock Split (accessed November 6, 2026)
- trade[XYZ] Docs: Perpetuals Risks and Disclaimers (accessed November 6, 2026)
- Hyperliquid Docs: HIP-3, Builder-Deployed Perpetuals (accessed November 6, 2026)
- Lighter Docs: Real World Assets (accessed November 6, 2026)
- Lighter Docs: Internal Pricing Mechanism (accessed November 6, 2026)
- Galaxy Research: How One Share in Seoul Broke Hyperliquid's Largest Equity Market (July 31, 2026)
- Markets Media: Coinbase Launches Stock Perpetual Futures (March 20, 2026)
- Cointelegraph: Coinbase launches 24/7 stock perps for non-US traders (March 20, 2026)
- Binance via PR Newswire: Binance Launches Foreign Exchange Perpetual Futures (September 18, 2026)
- Coinbase Derivatives: Submission #2026-62, Equity Perpetual Contracts, to the CFTC (September 18, 2026)
- CFTC: Chairman Michael S. Selig, Statement on Equity Perpetual Futures (November 3, 2026)
- SEC Divisions of Corporation Finance, Investment Management, and Trading and Markets: Statement on Tokenized Securities (January 28, 2026)
- Pyth: Pyth Pro Payload Reference (accessed November 6, 2026)
- Guardian: Veranta V2 Review (October 26, 2026)
- Guardian: Veranta V2 case study
Audit your equity perp's price paths
Guardian reviews the oracle, mark price, liquidation and settlement code behind stock perpetuals, and the relayers that feed it.