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.

4 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 Soon
06 The Funding Rate Mechanism Soon
07 Mark Price and Index Price Soon
08 Liquidations Soon
09 Open Interest and Skew Soon
10 PnL Accounting Soon
III The Engines
11 Orderbook Perps Soon
12 vAMM Perps Soon
13 Oracle and Pool Perps Soon
14 The LP / Vault Counterparty Soon
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