Spot, perpetual futures and exchanges

Many coins trade in two ways: on the spot market and as a perpetual futures contract. AlertaChart lets you follow both, side by side, and on several exchanges.

Spot and perpetual

• Spot is the coin itself. Buying BTC on the spot market means you own Bitcoin.
• A perpetual contract (perp) follows the coin's price without you owning it. It has no expiry date and allows long and short positions with leverage.

Prices on the two markets are usually very close but not identical. The difference can say something about market mood.

What .P means

A symbol ending in .P is the perpetual contract. BTC USDT is Bitcoin spot; BTC USDT.P is the Bitcoin perpetual. They are separate rows in your watchlist and separate charts, and an alert set on one does not fire for the other.

Exchanges

AlertaChart shows crypto markets from Binance, Bybit, OKX, Coinbase and Hyperliquid, spot and perpetual where the exchange offers them. The same coin can therefore appear several times in search, once for each exchange and market; the label on each result tells you which one it is.

Things that exist only on perpetual markets

Funding rates, open interest and liquidations belong to perpetual contracts. You will find them in the order-flow tools (Pro), and they are only shown on perpetual charts.

Global index and commodity perpetuals

Some exchanges list perpetual contracts on indices and commodities such as NAS100, SPX500, gold and oil. They let you follow those markets around the clock alongside your crypto.