qAssets
Trade any asset in Bitcoin, at a BTC rate locked on entry.
Overview
qAssets let you take exposure to assets other than bitcoin — gold, oil, equities, indices — without ever selling your bitcoin.
Your margin is in sats. Your profit and loss is in sats. Your fees are in sats. At no point are you holding dollars, a stablecoin, or a tokenised claim on anything. You put up bitcoin, you take a view on gold, and you get bitcoin back.
What makes a qAsset different is not only that everything happens in bitcoin. It is that the BTC/USD rate is locked when you place the order and never revisited. Your profit or loss is the asset's move, converted at that one rate. Bitcoin can double or halve while your position is open and the number of sats you make or lose does not change.
The instrument that does this is called a quanto, and a bitcoin-settled quanto is a world first, unique to LN Markets. Every qAsset is a quanto instrument, which is why they are prefixed with q.
qAssets do not give you ownership of the underlying asset. Buying qGold Perp does not give you a claim on physical gold, a gold ETF, or a gold-backed token, and an equity qAsset would give you no shareholding, voting right or dividend. A qAsset is bitcoin-settled exposure to a price.
What a quanto is
The problem
Say gold is at $4,000 and you think it is going to $4,400. You hold bitcoin.
On any ordinary venue, taking that view means selling bitcoin for dollars, buying gold exposure, and buying bitcoin back at the end. You were right about gold, you made 10%, and in the meantime bitcoin ran 40% without you. Your gold trade cost you more than it made.
That is the trade nobody wants to make, and it is the reason most bitcoin holders never take a position on anything else.
The mechanism
A quanto contract settles a foreign-currency payoff at a fixed, pre-agreed exchange rate. The payoff is computed in the asset's own currency, then converted at a rate that was locked at the start and never revisited.
On LN Markets:
- When you place an order, we record the BTC/USD index at that moment. Call it your locked rate.
- Your position's P&L is computed in dollars, from the asset's price only.
- That dollar P&L is converted to sats at your locked rate — not at today's rate.
The consequence is the point of the whole product: your P&L in sats depends only on the asset. Bitcoin can double or halve while your position is open and the number of sats you make or lose does not change.
The locked rate is set when your order is placed, not when it fills. A limit order that rests for a day and fills later still settles at the rate recorded at placement.
A worked example
Three traders each hold 55,444,444 sats, worth $44,910 with bitcoin at $81,000. Gold is at $4,491 and all three expect it to rise. Over the next 30 days gold does rise 8%, to $4,850.
- Trader A holds bitcoin and does nothing.
- Trader B sells bitcoin for dollars, buys gold, and buys bitcoin back at the end.
- Trader C buys qGold and keeps the bitcoin.
Scenario 1: bitcoin rises 15%, to $93,150. Counted in sats, Trader C ends with exactly the gold move, +8%. Trader B was right about gold and still ends with fewer sats than Trader A, because the bitcoin was bought back 15% dearer.
- Trader A55.44M satsunchanged, never left bitcoin
- Trader B52.07M sats-3.37M · right on gold, still lost
- Trader C59.88M sats+4.44M · exactly the gold move
Show the numbers
| Trader | Day 0 | Day 30 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trader A — holds bitcoin, does nothing | 55.44M sats | 55.44M sats | 0.0% |
| Trader B — sells bitcoin, buys gold, buys bitcoin back | 55.44M sats | 52.07M sats | -6.1% |
| Trader C — buys qGold, keeps the bitcoin | 55.44M sats | 59.88M sats | +8.0% |
Before trading fees and the quanto adjustment (≈65k sats over 30 days on this position).
Counted in dollars, everyone made money. Trader C made the most: the sats grew 8% on gold, and each sat was worth 15% more on bitcoin. The two multiply.
- Trader A$51,647+$6,737 · bitcoin only
- Trader B$48,503+$3,593 · gold only
- Trader C$55,778+$10,868 · gold and bitcoin
Show the numbers
| Trader | Day 0 | Day 30 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trader A — holds bitcoin, does nothing | $44,910 | $51,647 | +15.0% |
| Trader B — sells bitcoin, buys gold, buys bitcoin back | $44,910 | $48,503 | +8.0% |
| Trader C — buys qGold, keeps the bitcoin | $44,910 | $55,778 | +24.2% |
Before trading fees and the quanto adjustment (≈65k sats over 30 days on this position).
Scenario 2: bitcoin falls 15%, to $68,850. Counted in sats, Trader C again ends with exactly the gold move, +8%, because the fall never entered the P&L either. The locked rate cuts both ways. Trader B does best in sats this time, having bought bitcoin back cheaper.
- Trader A55.44M satsunchanged, never left bitcoin
- Trader B70.45M sats+15M · bought bitcoin back cheaper
- Trader C59.88M sats+4.44M · exactly the gold move
Show the numbers
| Trader | Day 0 | Day 30 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trader A — holds bitcoin, does nothing | 55.44M sats | 55.44M sats | 0.0% |
| Trader B — sells bitcoin, buys gold, buys bitcoin back | 55.44M sats | 70.45M sats | +27.1% |
| Trader C — buys qGold, keeps the bitcoin | 55.44M sats | 59.88M sats | +8.0% |
Before trading fees and the quanto adjustment (≈65k sats over 30 days on this position).
Counted in dollars, bitcoin's fall reaches everyone who stayed in bitcoin. Trader C's sats are up 8% but each sat is worth 15% less, so the dollar value is down despite being right about gold.
- Trader A$38,174-$6,737 · bitcoin only
- Trader B$48,503+$3,593 · gold only, out of bitcoin
- Trader C$41,227-$3,683 · sats +8%, bitcoin −15%
Show the numbers
| Trader | Day 0 | Day 30 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trader A — holds bitcoin, does nothing | $44,910 | $38,174 | -15.0% |
| Trader B — sells bitcoin, buys gold, buys bitcoin back | $44,910 | $48,503 | +8.0% |
| Trader C — buys qGold, keeps the bitcoin | $44,910 | $41,227 | -8.2% |
Before trading fees and the quanto adjustment (≈65k sats over 30 days on this position).
The takeaway: a qAsset is not a bet that bitcoin rises. It removes bitcoin from the bet altogether. Your sats track the asset, and what those sats are worth in dollars is your bitcoin position, exactly as it would be if you held bitcoin and did nothing. All four charts are before trading fees and the quanto adjustment, which comes to roughly 65,000 sats over 30 days on this position.
What it costs
Locking the conversion rate is not neutral. It creates an exposure to how the asset and bitcoin move together, and that exposure has a market price. The quanto adjustment passes it through. We compute it from public market data with a published formula, realized volatility of both assets and their correlation over a fixed window, so the number can be checked by anyone; there is no discretionary input. Its sign depends on the correlation and on your side: when the asset and bitcoin tend to move together, longs pay and shorts receive; when they move apart, the flow reverses. Today it is small relative to funding. See Quanto adjustment.
Listed markets
qAssets launch as a beta with a single market: qGold Perp, a perpetual on gold.
| Underlying | Market |
|---|---|
| Gold | qGold Perp |
The beta is open to a limited set of users. Request early access directly from the platform. More assets and instruments will join the list later down the road.
A market is identified by two keys — an instrument and a pair — which are the names used across the API and the streams. The symbol is what you see in the app; the keys are what you integrate against.
| Symbol | Instrument | Pair |
|---|---|---|
| qGold Perp | quanto_perp | xau_usd |
The naming convention is stable as the family grows: q + the asset name, then the instrument, Perp for the perpetual.
The app displays each market's quote pair as the reference venue quotes it — XAU/USDT — while
the API pair key names the underlying asset in USD, xau_usd. Both refer to the same market.
Bitcoin trading is unaffected. The existing inverse perpetual keeps its own instrument (inverse_perp / btc_usd) and its own rules, documented under Futures.
qAssets are not a separate wallet or sub-account. They draw on the same sats balance as the rest of the platform.
Tick size, quantity step, leverage ceiling, position caps, funding interval and price reference are set per market, not per family. Each market publishes its own values on its page, starting with qGold Perp.
Perpetuals — isolated
A qAsset perpetual is a leveraged contract on the underlying, quoted in US dollars, margined and settled in sats.
Isolated margin. Each position carries its own margin and its own locked rate. A liquidation touches only that position; other positions and your available balance are untouched. Positions are not netted against each other, and adding to a view means opening a second position with its own locked rate.
Trading hours
A qAsset market stays open for as long as the position behind it can be hedged, and each market publishes its hours on its own page. Liquidations stay live throughout.
This is deliberate, and it is a solvency decision rather than a convenience one. A position is open exactly when it can be closed. Suspending trading while the reference price keeps moving would leave you holding exposure you cannot exit, and would let losses run past the margin backing them. That shortfall does not disappear when the market reopens — it is recovered from everyone else, through wider spreads. Trading through keeps the cost of a position with the person who holds it.
Several qAsset underlyings have main trading sessions, outside which their own markets close or thin out — equities and indices, for example, trade on exchange hours. Outside those sessions, expect thinner order books and wider spreads. Because every execution runs against the order book rather than the price reference, that affects fills, trigger orders and liquidations alike. Size and leverage accordingly if you intend to hold across a closed session.
Costs and credits
Three items move sats on a qAsset position. One is a fee we charge — the trading fee. Two are passed through from the market — funding and the quanto adjustment — which you pay or receive depending on the market: LN Markets sets neither and takes no spread on either.
| Item | When |
|---|---|
| Trading fee | On open and close |
| Funding fee | At the market's funding interval, from the underlying perpetual |
| Quanto adjustment | At the market's settlement interval, from margin |
Intervals are set per market; see qGold Perp for gold.
Trading fee
Trading fees are tier-based and decrease with your 30-day cumulative volume, on the same schedule as Futures. Volume traded on qAssets counts toward the same 30-day total as your bitcoin volume, so there is a single tier across the platform. Your tier is visible in your Profile.
Funding fee
A qAsset perpetual carries a funding rate for the same reason any perpetual does: to keep the contract price anchored to the underlying. The rate is taken from the underlying perpetual and passed through to you 1:1 — LN Markets does not set it and does not take a spread on it.
Funding is exchanged at the market's funding interval between longs and shorts:
- Positive rate: longs pay, shorts receive.
- Negative rate: longs receive, shorts pay.
Paid funding is deducted from the position's margin; received funding is credited.
Quanto adjustment
The quanto adjustment is the price of the rate lock. It is what you pay — or are paid — for having your conversion rate fixed for the life of the position.
How it is set. It is not a number we choose. It is derived from three observable market inputs:
Annual rate = correlation(asset, BTC) × volatility(asset) × volatility(BTC)All three are measured over a rolling ~21-day window of 8-hour returns and recomputed daily, so the rate moves with the market rather than with our discretion.
Markets with a higher correlation to bitcoin, or higher volatility, carry a higher adjustment. Each market's current rate is shown on its Rates screen; the gold inputs are worked through on qGold Perp.
What it is charged on. The adjustment applies to the notional of your position at entry, not to your margin and not to the position's current market value. At 20x leverage the notional and the margin differ by a factor of twenty, so the distinction matters:
Adjustment (sats per day) ≈ Entry notional (sats) × Annual rate ÷ 365Who pays. The adjustment is symmetric: one side pays it and the other side receives it, determined by the sign of the correlation and the side you are on. While the asset and bitcoin are positively correlated, longs pay and shorts receive. If the correlation turns negative the direction flips.
When it settles. The adjustment is fixed at the market's settlement interval and deducted from — or added to — the position's margin.
What to know before trading
You are not buying the asset. A qAsset is bitcoin-settled exposure to a price. There is no delivery, no redemption, no custodian, no token, and on equity underlyings no shareholding, vote or dividend.
Your rate is locked when you place the order, not when it fills. A limit order that rests through a large bitcoin move will fill at a conversion rate set before that move.
Your P&L is fixed in sats, which is the point and also the trade-off. If you are right about the asset you make a fixed number of sats. If bitcoin then falls, those sats are worth less in dollars — but you still have them, and you never left bitcoin to get them.
These costs run whether or not the position moves. On a perpetual, funding and the quanto adjustment are taken from margin at each interval, so a leveraged position left open long enough is liquidated by fees alone.
We trade through closed sessions. Liquidations do not pause when the underlying market does. See Trading hours.
Caps are per order and per account, and set per market.
Glossary
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| qAsset | A quanto instrument on LN Markets: non-bitcoin exposure, margined and settled in sats |
| Quanto | A contract whose foreign-currency payoff is converted at a rate fixed in advance |
| Locked rate | The BTC/USD index recorded when your order was placed, used for all conversions on that position |
| Notional | Position size in sats: quantity × asset price ÷ locked rate |
| Quanto adjustment | The cost of the rate lock, derived from the asset's correlation with bitcoin and both volatilities |
| Funding fee | The perpetual's anchoring payment between longs and shorts, passed through 1:1 |