- go long or short with posted collateral
- share liquidity between FIFO order book flow and spline liquidity
- keep positions open indefinitely as long as margin stays healthy
What makes a perp different from spot
In spot trading, you buy or sell the asset itself. In perps, you trade synthetic exposure instead:- PnL is driven by mark-price changes versus your entry price
- leverage is created by posting only a fraction of notional as collateral
- funding transfers value between longs and shorts to keep the market anchored
- liquidation rules enforce solvency when collateral is no longer sufficient
The core moving parts
Entry price and PnL
Every position has an effective entry price and then accumulates unrealized PnL as mark price moves. See Entry Price And PnL.Mark price
Phoenix risk does not use the last trade price blindly. It builds mark price from an off-chain oracle, orderbook, and external-perp price components. See Mark Price.Funding
Because perps have no expiry, funding is the mechanism that keeps the perp aligned with the underlying market over time. See Funding Rate.Margin
Phoenix compares effective collateral against size-dependent margin thresholds. Cross and isolated accounts behave differently. See Accounts and Margin Math.Liquidations and ADL
If an account falls through the risk ladder, Phoenix can cancel risk-increasing orders, liquidate, use backstop flows, and eventually reach ADL. See Liquidations.How to navigate the docs from here
- Start with Accounts if you need the wallet and trader-account model
- Read Matching Engine if you want to understand fills
- Read Margin Math if you want to understand liquidation risk
- Use Market Parameters once the earlier concepts are familiar