Binance’s futures platform is launching a Zcash (ZEC)–Tether (USDT) perpetual contract with maximum leverage of up to 50x.

An announcement from the exchange on Feb. 4 revealed that trading for the new ZEC/USDT contract will go live at 8.00 a.m. on Feb. 5. In a bid to prevent market manipulation, Binance says it has chosen to set a pricing limit of ±1% on the mark price within the first 15 minutes after trading begins.

Perpetual vs. traditional futures

As reported, when the Binance Futures platform launched — offering maximum leverage of as high as 125x — the exchange emphasized it was offering traders access to an insurance fund that can ostensibly help to limit the chances of auto-deleverage.

CEO Changpeng Zhao said that the futures platform has drawn increased institutional participation, with professional traders driving the need to introduce ways to support very fast trades.

Unlike a traditional futures contract, there is no expiration or settlement date for perpetual contracts. Depending on the determined settlement time for a traditional futures contract, Binance explains, price discrepancies between the spot and futures markets can potentially be amplified. In contrast to this:

“The perpetual contract is an attempt to take advantage of a futures contract [...] while mimicking the behavior of the spot market in order to reduce the price gap between the futures price and the mark price. This is a marked improvement compared to the traditional futures contract, which can have prolonged or even permanent differences versus the spot price.”

Binance pursues a multi-pronged expansion

As reported last week, Binance has just hired an executive from one of its foremost rival exchanges, Huobi. Josh Goodbody, formerly head of Europe and Americas at Huobi, is now Binance’s new director of European and Latin American growth and institutional business.

Beyond its futures platform, Binance has been pursuing global expansion and is diversifying available cryptocurrency investment options. It is set to introduce staking rewards on its United States-based marketplace in February, which follows the exchange’s launch of a dedicated staking platform at the end of September 2019.