Bybit Enables Two-Way Margin Trading With Perpetual Contracts Quoted in Tether

Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Bybit is adding tether (USDT) perpetual contracts to its suite of derivative products.

The contracts, going live Wednesday, will use the world’s largest stablecoin by market cap as both the quote and settlement currency for two-way trades, enabling traders to hold both long and short positions at the same time and with different levels of leverage.

All profits, losses and account balances will be denominated in USDT, making it clearer and easier for traders to make investment decisions using USDT, the firm says. Using a stablecoin also removes the volatility brought by non-pegged cryptocurrencies.

The USDT perpetual contracts attempt to replicate the underlying spot markets using increased leverage. Similar to Bybit’s existing perpetual contracts denominated in bitcoin, the USDT contracts will have no expiry date, and the price will be attached to the underlying index.

With other contracts, a trader must hold account balances in multiple currencies because profits and losses are denominated in the currency underlying the contract. If they receive a margin call, it means filling their margin using the relevant asset underlying the contract.

With the new USDT perpetuals, the process is more simplified for traders wishing to utilize cross-margin to make use of unrealized profit on their account. That profit can be used as a top-up margin for other existing positions as well as across other contracts, Bybit says.

Updated (11:31 UTC, March 24, 2020): Clarified the launch date of the contracts.