qWTI Perp
Trade WTI crude oil in Bitcoin with a perpetual margined and settled in sats.
Overview
qWTI Perp is a perpetual on WTI crude oil, quoted as WTI/USDT, margined and settled in sats, at a BTC/USDT rate locked when you place the order. It is part of the qAssets beta, open to a limited set of users.
This page covers what is specific to oil. How the rate lock, funding and the quanto adjustment work for every qAsset is explained on qAssets.
Contract specification
| Description | Value |
|---|---|
| Instrument / pair | quanto_perp / wti_usdt |
| Quantity unit | Barrel (bbl) |
| Underlying asset | WTI crude oil |
| Price reference | LNM WTI Perp Index |
| P&L | Quantity × (Exit price − Entry price) ÷ Locked BTC rate × 100,000,000 |
| Margin mode | Isolated |
| Max leverage | 20x |
| Price tick | $0.01 |
| Quantity step | 0.01 bbl |
| Min order | 0.01 bbl |
| Max quantity per order | 10 bbl |
| Max quantity per account | 500 bbl |
| Funding interval | Every 4 hours |
| Quanto adjustment | Charged or received every 4 hours, from margin |
Margin and liquidation
Your notional is the size of the position, expressed in sats at your locked rate:
Notional (sats) = Quantity × Entry price ÷ Locked BTC rate × 100,000,000Your margin is that notional divided by your leverage:
Margin (sats) = Notional ÷ LeverageBecause the bitcoin rate is fixed, your liquidation level is a price in the underlying and nothing else. It does not move when bitcoin moves:
Long: Liquidation price = Entry price × (1 − 1 / Leverage)
Short: Liquidation price = Entry price × (1 + 1 / Leverage)Funding and the quanto adjustment are settled from your margin every 4 hours, exactly as funding works on Futures. A position held for a long time at high leverage sees its margin erode, and its liquidation level move closer, even if the underlying has not moved at all. A leveraged position left open indefinitely will eventually be liquidated by fees alone.
Maintenance margin
A maintenance margin is reserved beside your trade margin. It is not part of the margin that absorbs P&L. It is held back to cover the fees that would be charged if the position were liquidated, computed at the highest tier fee rate regardless of your own tier.
| Order type | Reserved |
|---|---|
| Market | Opening fee + closing fee |
| Limit | Closing fee |
This is the same mechanism as Futures.
Price reference
It is worth separating two things that are easy to confuse.
- The underlying asset is what you are taking a view on. For qWTI Perp that is WTI crude oil.
- The reference market is where we read oil's price from. That is a venue, or a basket of venues, quoting an instrument that tracks WTI crude oil.
| Price | Reference |
|---|---|
| WTI crude oil | LNM WTI Perp Index |
| BTC/USDT rate lock | LN Markets bitcoin index, as on Futures |
LNM WTI Perp Index
The LNM WTI Perp Index is a weighted average of the last traded prices of CLUSDT perpetual futures across the constituent exchanges. It is used to compute profit and loss on qWTI Perp.
The current composition is as follows:
| Exchange | Weight |
|---|---|
| Binance | 100% |
Building the reference as an index rather than pointing directly at one venue's feed means the composition can be widened later, by adding exchanges or reweighting, without changing the contract, the API or anything you have open. It is the same construction as the BTCUSD Basket behind Futures.
This composition may be modified without prior notice.
Order execution, including liquidation and trigger orders, runs against available order book liquidity, not against the price reference. This is the same behaviour as Futures.
Funding
Funding on qWTI Perp is exchanged every 4 hours, at 00:00, 04:00, 08:00, 12:00, 16:00 and 20:00 UTC. The rate is the Binance CLUSDT perpetual funding rate, passed through 1:1. Direction and settlement follow the rules under Funding fee.
Quanto adjustment
The adjustment on oil uses the formula under Quanto adjustment. The rate is updated frequently as market conditions change: a higher correlation with bitcoin or higher volatility raises it, calmer markets lower it. The current rate is shown on the market's Rates screen. The adjustment is fixed every 4 hours and deducted from, or added to, the position's margin.
Oil and bitcoin have often moved independently of each other, so the adjustment on qWTI Perp can be close to zero, and its sign can change: when the correlation turns negative, longs receive and shorts pay.
No expiry, no roll
Oil futures on exchanges expire every month. Holding a futures position over time means closing the expiring contract and opening the next one, called rolling, at whatever price difference separates the two.
qWTI Perp has no expiry and no delivery. You never roll it. The cost of carrying oil over time, which shows up on exchanges as the price gap between successive contracts, shows up here in funding instead.
Why the price can differ from the oil price in the news
The oil price quoted in the news is usually the front-month futures contract, the one closest to expiry. The LNM WTI Perp Index follows the reference perpetual, which tracks that contract but can trade slightly above or below it between funding payments. Funding is what pulls the two back together.
A small gap between qWTI Perp and the headline oil price is expected and does not mean the reference is wrong.
Trading hours
qWTI Perp trades 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including weekends and oil market holidays. Liquidations stay live throughout, for the reasons set out under Trading hours.
WTI futures trade from Sunday evening to Friday evening, US time. Outside those hours, the price follows the perpetual market and spreads are wider. Size and leverage accordingly if you intend to hold across a weekend.
Read next
qAssets explains the quanto mechanism, the worked scenarios, and the costs common to every qAsset.