Polymarket launches perpetual futures trading with up to 20x leverage

Sep 3, 2026

Prediction-market platform Polymarket has launched Polymarket Perps, a perpetual futures trading platform offering up to 20x leverage across 67 live markets, including cryptocurrencies, stocks, indices, and commodities. To comply with a 2022 CFTC consent order, the service is restricted to international users, blocking access from the U.S. and Canada. To support the launch, Polymarket is upgrading its infrastructure to handle up to 200,000 orders per second.

Polymarket Perps launch

▪Polymarket launched its perpetual futures trading platform, Polymarket Perps, on September 3, 2026, offering up to 20x leverage on cryptocurrencies, stocks, indices, and commodities.
▪Polymarket Perps launched with 67 live markets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Tesla, Nvidia, SpaceX, gold, silver, Brent crude, and the S&P 500.

Perpetual futures product features

▪Polymarket Perps features hourly funding settlement capped at 4% per hour, with a maintenance margin set at 2.5% on 20x leveraged markets.
▪Polymarket Perps allows traders to take long or short positions on assets without an expiration date, keeping positions open as long as they meet margin requirements.

Fee structure comparison

▪Polymarket's fee schedule starts at 0.04% for takers and 0.0125% for makers, stepping down to 0.02% and a 0.005% maker rebate for 30-day volumes above $1 billion.
▪Polymarket's entry-tier fees are lower than Hyperliquid's published schedule, which starts at 0.045% for takers and 0.015% for makers.

Offshore trading strategy

▪Polymarket Perps is restricted to international users and blocks order placement from the United States, Canada, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and several Ukrainian regions.
▪The exclusion of U.S. traders from Polymarket Perps stems from a January 2022 Commodity Futures Trading Commission order against Blockratize, Polymarket's operating entity.

Platform infrastructure scaling

▪Polymarket is upgrading its trading system to handle 200,000 orders per second, with a long-term goal of exceeding 400,000 orders per second.
▪Polymarket's vice president of engineering for DeFi, Josh Stevens, stated that the platform's central limit order book is full of tech debt and targeted for a Q4 2026 rewrite.

Debatable claims

▪Regulators should permit perpetual futures contracts on physical commodities
▪Retail trading platforms should be banned from offering high-leverage derivatives
▪The CFTC should allow Polymarket to operate in the United States