Futures Trading Explained

Read 03. Spot Trading Explained first. Everything there about order statuses, reserves, strings for money and 201 not meaning acceptance applies here too.

Futures involve borrowed money and you can lose your entire margin. With 10x leverage, a 10% move against you wipes out your position. This is not the place to learn how the API works. Practice on spot first.

1. What are futures?

A perpetual futures contract is an agreement whose value tracks the price of a coin, without you ever owning the coin. Because you do not have to pay for the whole thing, you can control a larger position with a smaller amount of money. The money you put up is called margin, and the multiplier is called leverage.

Every contract on MinGlobal is USDT-margined: you post USDT as margin, and profits and losses are settled in USDT, whichever coin the contract tracks.

What leverage actually does

You want exposure to 0.01 BTC while BTC is at 60,000 USDT. That is 600 USDT of exposure.

Leverage	Margin you post	A 10% price move against you
1x	600 USDT	You lose 60 USDT, about 10% of your margin
10x	60 USDT	You lose 60 USDT, which is all of your margin
20x	30 USDT	You are liquidated well before the 10% is reached

Leverage multiplies gains and losses equally. It does not improve your odds. It shortens the distance between you and a total loss.

Liquidation

If your losses eat into your margin far enough, the exchange closes your position for you to stop the loss growing. You do not get a choice, and the margin is gone. This has no equivalent in spot trading, where a falling price simply means you hold a coin worth less.

2. Extra words for futures

Position side

`positionSide`	You are betting	You profit when
`LONG`	The price goes up	The price rises
`SHORT`	The price goes down	The price falls

side (BUY or SELL) is separate. side opens or closes, and positionSide says which direction the position runs in. Opening a long is positionSide: LONG with side: BUY.

Margin mode

`marginMode`	Meaning
`ISOLATED`	Only the margin assigned to this position is at risk. A liquidation cannot touch anything else
`CROSS`	Your whole futures balance backs the position. It survives larger moves, but a liquidation can consume much more

ISOLATED is the safer default and caps your downside per position.

You cannot mix modes on one symbol. If you already have an open position on BTC-USDT using CROSS, an ISOLATED order on the same symbol returns 409 MARGIN_MODE_CONFLICT.

Reduce only

reduceOnly: true means the order may only shrink an existing position, never open or enlarge one. Use it to close out safely, so a mistake cannot accidentally flip you into a position on the other side. It must be a real JSON boolean. The string "false" is rejected.

Margin reserved

margin = quantity x referencePrice / leverage,  plus a buffer (5% by default), rounded up

A reduceOnly order already covered by an open position can legitimately reserve "0".

3. Differences from the spot API you must not miss

	Spot	Futures
Order type field name	`type`	`orderType`
Endpoint	`POST /v1/orders`	`POST /v1/futures/orders`
Extra required fields	none	`positionSide`, `leverage`, `marginMode`
Listing open orders	`GET /v1/orders` returns everything	`GET /v1/futures/orders` returns open only
Listing finished orders	same endpoint	`GET /v1/futures/orders/history`
Fills and fees	not itemized	`fills` array on the list endpoints only
Order rate limit	per-key 600/min	an extra 30 orders per minute per user
KYC	required	required, with no exemption at all

The request field really is called orderType on futures and type on spot. It is a genuine inconsistency, and it is the most common porting bug.

Open orders and history are exactly complementary

GET /v1/futures/orders returns orders that are not finished. GET /v1/futures/orders/history returns those that are (FILLED, CANCELED, EXPIRED, REJECTED). An order appears in one list or the other, never both and never neither.

Only the history endpoint explains rejections. On rows with status: "REJECTED" it adds rejectReason and venueCode. On every other row those keys are absent, not null.

Fees and profit are not on the order

There are no order-level fee, feeAsset or realisedPnl fields. Add up fills[].feeAmount and fills[].realisedPnl yourself. Note that GET /v1/futures/orders/{id} returns a single order without its fills, so use the history list when you need executions.

`leverage` is the one number that is a number

Every money field on the order object is a string. leverage is a plain JSON integer. Do not send it as "10".

4. How to open and close a futures position

Step 1. Check the contract exists. GET /v1/market/futures/symbols. Contract symbols are not always the same set as spot symbols.

Step 2. Check your margin. GET /v1/futures/balance?asset=USDT. This reads the futures wallet, which is separate from spot. If the money is in the wrong wallet, move it in the web app.

Step 3. Open the position.

POST /v1/futures/orders
{
  "symbol": "BTC-USDT",
  "positionSide": "LONG",
  "side": "BUY",
  "orderType": "LIMIT",
  "price": "60000",
  "quantity": "0.01",
  "leverage": 10,
  "marginMode": "ISOLATED",
  "reduceOnly": false
}

Step 4. Read status from the body. Same rule as spot: 201 is not acceptance.

Step 5. Track it. GET /v1/futures/orders?limit=50 while it is open, then GET /v1/futures/orders/history?limit=50 once it finishes.

Step 6. Close the position. Send the opposite side on the same positionSide, with reduceOnly: true. To close the long above, send side: "SELL", positionSide: "LONG", reduceOnly: true.

Step 7. Cancel an unfilled order. DELETE /v1/futures/orders/{id}. Cancelling an order is not the same as closing a position. Cancelling removes an order that has not filled. Closing needs an opposing reduceOnly order.

5. What this API does not give you

Not available	What to do instead
Stop-loss and take-profit orders	No `stopPrice`, `triggerPrice`, `takeProfit` or `stopLoss` fields exist. Watch the price yourself and send a `reduceOnly` order
`IOC`, `FOK` or post-only	`timeInForce` supports `GTC` only, and is forbidden on `MARKET` orders
`GET /v1/futures/positions`	Outside the API key permission set. Session only
`GET /v1/futures/fills`	Currently broken and returns `500` on every call. Read fills from `/v1/futures/orders/history`
Custom `clientOrderId`	The server mints one for you
Working list filters	`symbol`, `orderType`, `startTime` and `endTime` are accepted and then ignored. Only `limit` filters. Filter in your own code

04. Futures Trading Explained

Futures Trading Explained#

1. What are futures?#

What leverage actually does#

Liquidation#

2. Extra words for futures#

Position side#

Margin mode#

Reduce only#

Margin reserved#

3. Differences from the spot API you must not miss#

Open orders and history are exactly complementary#

Fees and profit are not on the order#

leverage is the one number that is a number#

4. How to open and close a futures position#

5. What this API does not give you#