A Quick Guide to Coin-Margined Quarterly Contracts

A quarterly futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell an underlying asset at a predetermined price at a specified time (delivery date) in the future. Unlike perpetual futures contracts, quarterly futures contracts have an expiration date.

When the quarterly futures contract is due, both the contract buyer (in a long position) and the seller (in a short position) are obligated to execute the contract regardless of the underlying asset’s price. The buyer gains if the settlement price is higher than the entry price, while the seller gains if the settlement is lower than the entry price.

The first quarterly futures contract launched by Binance Futures was the “BTCUSD Quarterly 0925”. The ticker name indicates the underlying asset and the expiry date.

BTCUSD Quarterly futures contracts are quoted and settled in the denominated BTC tokens. They also use BTC as the collateral. It means that in order to trade this contract, you must have BTC in your Futures Wallet.

For example, the “BTCUSD Quarterly 0925” futures contracts expire on the Friday of the corresponding three-month period, 25 September 2020 at 08:00:00 UTC. The settlement fee is charged as same as taker fee for all positions settled on the delivery date.

Quarterly futures on Binance are cash-delivered contracts, also known as cash settlement. When the contract is due, buyers and sellers do not exchange the underlying asset directly. Instead, the futures exchange delivers all open positions at a settlement price (index-based last-hour moving average price).

Should we offer more quarterly futures contracts for trading, we will make an official announcement in advance.

Binance Futures uses “contract” as a standardized size unit when describing a contract’s position size. For example, below are ten BTCUSD Quarterly 0925 contracts long and 20 BTCUSD Quarterly 0925 contracts short.

The contract multiplier represents the value of a contract. Each Quarterly contract represents 100 USD. For example, the positions above show 1,000 USD of BTCUSD Quarterly 0925 long (100 USD x 10 contracts) and 2,000 USD of BTCUSD Quarterly 0925 short (100 USD x 20 contracts). Meanwhile, for Altcoin contracts, the multiplier is 10 USD.

Notional value is the contract value of a futures contract. For instance, the notional value of BTCUSD Quarterly 0925 is denominated in BTC.

The contract’s notional value is calculated by multiplying the contract unit by the contract multiplier and divided by mark price. Binance Futures uses the notional value to calculate the required margin, trading fee, delivery fee, and PNL.

For example, the notional value of BTCUSD Quarterly 0925 long is

(Contract Size x Contract Multiplier) / Mark Price

= (10 Contracts x 100 USD) / 10,104 USD

= 0.09897 BTC (at the the image was taken)

Realized PNL refers to profits and losses incurred from completed trade transactions. Unrealized PNL refers to profits and losses associated with transactions not yet completed.

For example, when User A opens 10 contracts of BTCUSD Quarterly 0925 long, the unrealized PNL would be 0.0007 BTC. Once User A closed the position, User A is said to have earned 0.0007 BTC of realized PNL.

Unrealized PNL (BTC)

= Contract Size x Contract Multiplier x (1 / Entry Price - 1 / Mark Price)

= 10 Contracts x 100 USD x (1 / 10,104 USD - 1 / 10,175.8 USD)

= 0.0007 BTC

For more contract specifications, please refer to the Contract Specifications of Quarterly Futures Contract.

For further information on Binance’s quarterly futures, our Academy explains more: Quarterly Futures: What Are They And How To Trade Them?