Crypto Derivatives Glossary
29 plain-English definitions of the terms that matter in crypto derivatives data. Each entry links to the live data on our site, so you see the concept, then see it playing out in real markets. Skim the grid below or click into a term for the full explainer.
Quantum-Exposed Bitcoin Supply
Bitcoin held in outputs whose public key is already visible on-chain, so a large quantum computer could in principle derive the private key.
P2PK (Pay-to-Public-Key)
The original Bitcoin output script that pays directly to a public key; most of it dates from 2009-2010 and has never moved.
BIP-360 (P2MR)
A Bitcoin Improvement Proposal for a Merkle-root output type that never puts a public key on-chain until spend, designed as a path to post-quantum signatures.
Q-Day
Shorthand for the day a quantum computer can break today's public-key cryptography, including the elliptic-curve signatures Bitcoin uses.
Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC)
Signature and key-exchange schemes designed to resist quantum computers; NIST finalised the first standards in August 2024.
Funding Rate
Periodic payment between perpetual futures longs and shorts that keeps the contract tethered to spot.
Open Interest
Total notional value of all open futures positions at a given moment.
Basis
Price gap between a futures contract and its underlying spot index.
Mark Price
The exchange's fair-value price for a perpetual, derived from the spot index plus a basis average. Liquidations, unrealized PnL, and funding all use it instead of last price.
Liquidation
Forced closure of a leveraged position when its margin is exhausted.
Basis Points (bps)
1 basis point = 0.01%. We use bps as the canonical unit for funding, basis and premium moves.
Slippage
Difference between the intended execution price and the actual filled price.
Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA)
Buying a fixed USD amount of an asset on a fixed schedule regardless of price.
Altcoin Season (Altseason)
A market phase where altcoins broadly outperform Bitcoin, visible as falling BTC dominance during a rally.
Liquidation Heatmap
A chart estimating where leveraged futures positions would be forcibly closed, shown as price zones colored by intensity.
Long/Short Ratio
The ratio of accounts or positions long versus short a perpetual. Extremes flag crowded trades that often resolve violently.
Bitcoin Dominance (BTC.D)
Bitcoin's share of the total crypto market cap. Rising dominance means capital rotating into BTC, falling means altcoins are outperforming.
Altcoin Season Index
The share of top-50 altcoins beating BTC over 90 days. 75+ is altseason, 25 or less is Bitcoin season. We compute it live from Binance perps.
Fear & Greed Index
Alternative.me's 0-100 gauge of market sentiment. We mirror it and blend it into our Retail Euphoria Index.
Pressure Score
Our proprietary 0-100 composite of derivatives stress per symbol.
Smart Money
Binance top-trader positioning, used as a contrarian or confirmatory signal vs retail.
Liquidation Cascade
A self-feeding burst of forced closures, where each liquidation pushes price into the next cluster.
Funding Rate Arbitrage
Collecting the funding payment by holding offsetting positions so the price move cancels out.
Order Flow Toxicity
How one-sided the aggressive trading is, used as a read on whether informed money is pushing.
VPIN
Volume-Synchronized Probability of Informed Trading, a bucketed measure of order-flow imbalance.
Gamma Exposure (GEX)
Aggregate dealer gamma across the option chain, used to read whether hedging damps or amplifies moves.
DVOL
Deribit's 30-day implied volatility index for Bitcoin, the crypto analogue of the VIX.
Coinbase Premium
The price gap between Coinbase and the global market, read as a proxy for US demand.
Market Impact
How far your own order moves the price, separate from the spread you cross to get filled.