Perps Guide

Perps, from first principles.

An interactive guide to perpetual futures. It starts with the basics underneath them, moves to the engines they run on (orderbook, AMM, oracle), and ends at the machinery that keeps them alive. Every concept is a directed visual you can poke at.

Written from the scars of building multiple perp DEXes.

14 Chapters live
20 Planned
5 Parts
Start with Chapter 1 →
I Foundations
Start here 01 Value and Price There is no single price. Start with bid, ask, spread, and oracle, and why which one you mean is the whole game. Begin → 02 Liquidity and Slippage Read → 03 Long, Short and PnL Read → 04 Leverage and Margin Read →
II Anatomy of a Perp
05 Futures vs Spot Read → 06 The Funding Rate Mechanism Read → 07 Mark Price and Index Price Read → 08 Liquidations Read → 09 Open Interest and Skew Read → 10 PnL Accounting Read →
III The Engines
11 Orderbook Perps Read → 12 vAMM Perps Read → 13 Oracle-Priced Perps Read → 14 The Pool / Vault Counterparty Read →
IV The Machinery
15 Liquidation Engines at Scale Soon
16 Oracle Design and Manipulation Soon
17 Insurance Funds and ADL Soon
18 MEV and Transaction Ordering Soon
V Architecture
19 Vault Standards (ERC-4626 / 7540) Soon
20 Hedging Engines Soon