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Risks of Perps Trading

Every category of risk to understand before trading perps, from leverage and liquidation through funding costs to third-party protocol risk.

Written by Klutch

Perpetual futures carry significantly more risk than spot trading. Before trading perps, you should understand each category of risk and how it can affect your funds.

Leverage risk

Leverage amplifies both gains and losses. A 10x leveraged position that moves 5% against you results in a 50% loss of your margin. At higher leverage levels, even small price movements can cause substantial losses.

Liquidation risk

Liquidation is the forced closure of your position when your collateral falls below the required maintenance margin. When this happens, the margin allocated to that position is permanently lost.

On isolated margin, the default, a liquidation only affects the specific position and its allocated collateral. Your other positions and the rest of your perps cash balance are not impacted. Liquidated funds are gone and cannot be recovered by fomo or anyone else.

On cross margin your positions share your perps cash balance as collateral, so more of that balance can be liquidated than the margin that opened the position. Cross margin is explained in https://help.fomo.family/en/articles/17983871-cross-margin-on-perps.

Funding rate costs

Funding rates are an ongoing cost of holding a position. Every hour, funding is paid or received on every open position, out of that position's margin on isolated margin or your shared perps cash balance on cross.

Over days or weeks, these payments add up. A position that looks profitable based on price movement alone may actually be losing money once funding costs are accounted for.

Mark price and chart price

The mark price and the chart price are not always the same. Liquidation and take profit/stop loss triggers use the mark price, which combines the oracle price (a composite across major exchanges) with local trading activity on the protocol.

The chart in the app shows the last trade price. During volatile periods, these two prices can diverge, meaning your position may be liquidated or your stop loss may trigger at a moment when the chart shows a different price.

Market volatility

Crypto markets are volatile. Prices can move sharply and without warning. Fast market moves can trigger liquidation before you have time to react, and in extreme conditions, prices can gap past your stop loss level entirely.

Transactions are final

fomo is a non-custodial platform. Every trade, transfer, and transaction is executed on chain and cannot be reversed. There is no undo, no chargeback, and no way for fomo to recover funds that are lost to liquidation, bad trades, or incorrect transfers. Once a transaction is confirmed, it is permanent.

Protocol risk

Perpetual futures on fomo are powered by Hyperliquid, a third-party decentralized protocol. While fomo builds the interface you use, the trading infrastructure, order matching, liquidation mechanics, and fund custody all operate on that external protocol. This introduces protocol risk: the possibility that the third-party infrastructure experiences downtime, bugs, or other issues that affect your positions.

Know what you are trading

Perps are complex financial instruments that are not suitable for everyone. If you are unfamiliar with leverage, margin, liquidation, and funding rates, take time to understand each concept before committing real funds. Only trade with money you can afford to lose entirely.

Perpetuals ("Perps") are provided by third-party protocols and are not available to U.S. Persons (citizens, residents, or anyone located in the U.S.). Do not attempt to access perps from within the United States.


For purposes of these Terms, a "U.S. Person" means: (i) any natural person resident in the United States; (ii) any citizen or permanent resident of the United States, including any such person temporarily located outside the United States; (iii) any entity organized or incorporated under the laws of the United States or any state thereof; (iv) any estate of which any executor or administrator is a U.S. Person; (v) any trust of which any trustee is a U.S. Person; (vi) any agency or branch of a non-U.S. entity located in the United States; (vii) any discretionary or non-discretionary account held by a dealer or fiduciary organized, incorporated, or (if an individual) resident in the United States; or (viii) any entity organized or incorporated outside the United States that is formed by a U.S. Person principally for the purpose of investing in unregistered securities or derivative instruments. "United States" means the United States of America, its territories and possessions, any state of the United States, and the District of Columbia.

Representations and Warranties. By accessing or using Perps functionality, you represent and warrant that: (a) you are not a U.S. Person; (b) you are not accessing Perps from within the United States; (c) you are not accessing Perps on behalf of, or for the benefit of, any U.S. Person; (d) you will not use any technology, mechanism, or technique (including a VPN, proxy, or similar tool) to circumvent or attempt to circumvent geographic restrictions on Perps; and (e) you understand that these representations are material and that Fomo is relying on them in providing you access to Perps functionality.

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