Perpetual Contracts Can Complement Traditional Futures Market, No Evidence Found to Weaken Benchmark Market

Odaily Planet Daily reports that a research report titled "Perpetual Futures as Complements to Dated Futures" states that perpetual futures can expand market risk management tools and improve price discovery efficiency, rather than squeezing the traditional dated futures market.

The report points out that the biggest difference between perpetual contracts and traditional futures is the absence of an expiration date, allowing traders to maintain exposure to asset prices continuously through a single contract without the need for forced rollovers, making it more suitable for all-weather trading. With the introduction of perpetual futures into the U.S. market, there has been prior concern about whether they would siphon liquidity away from traditional futures.

By analyzing data from Bitcoin and on-chain WTI crude oil perpetual contracts, the study compares the prices of perpetual contracts during the closure of the traditional futures market with the benchmark futures prices after the market reopens. The research covers 205 weekends of Bitcoin trading and 19 sample weekends of on-chain crude oil perpetual contracts.

The study finds that perpetual futures complement traditional futures in several ways:

• Perpetual contracts can reduce hedging costs, avoiding the additional costs associated with rolling over traditional futures after expiration;

• Perpetual contracts attract small trading demands that traditional futures find difficult to cover, such as the median trading size of on-chain crude oil perpetual contracts being about $1,300, roughly 1/100 of traditional WTI futures;

• The perpetual market can provide effective price discovery during the closure of the traditional market, with weekend prices often being validated by the benchmark market's reopening prices;

• In extreme market conditions, perpetual contracts can help investors continuously manage risk. For example, during significant fluctuations in crude oil over the weekend in March 2026, using on-chain crude oil perpetual contracts for hedging could significantly reduce potential losses;

• Data shows that after the launch of the perpetual market, there has been no statistically significant negative impact on the traditional benchmark market, and the price spread after the reopening of the WTI futures market has even narrowed.

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