Contract types and account structure

Spot
Buying the actual coin with USDT (or fiat off-exchange). You own the token, no leverage, no liquidation.
Perpetual (Perp)
A futures contract with no expiry — funding rate keeps the contract price tethered to the spot index. On OKX they are named like BTC-USDT-SWAP, ETH-USDT-SWAP.
Dated futures
Contracts that do expire, settled at the index price. OKX runs weekly, bi-weekly, quarterly and bi-quarterly cycles.
USDT-margined (linear)
Both collateral and PnL are denominated in USDT — 1 contract = 0.01 BTC and so on. Default for newcomers.
Coin-margined (inverse)
Collateral and PnL are in the underlying coin (e.g. BTC posted as collateral for the BTC-USD contract). Useful for long-term holders hedging.
Unified Account
OKX's account mode where spot, futures and options share a single margin pool. Enabled by default for new sign-ups since 2025-Q4.
Classic Account
The older OKX mode with separate spot and futures wallets — funds need an explicit transfer between them.
Sub-account
A walled-off child account under your main login with its own balance and positions, usually for running independent strategies or isolating risk.

Positions and margin

Long
You're betting the price goes up — buy to open. Price up, you profit; price down, you lose.
Short
You're betting the price goes down — sell to open. Perpetuals let you do this; spot generally doesn't.
Leverage
Controlling N units of notional with 1 unit of margin; N is the leverage multiple. Higher leverage means a smaller move wipes your collateral.
Isolated margin
Each position carries its own dedicated collateral. When it's gone, the position liquidates and the rest of your account is untouched.
Cross margin
The full account balance backs every open position. Extreme moves can drag down assets that weren't part of the trade.
Margin ratio
Equity divided by maintenance margin. The lower it drops, the closer you are to liquidation. OKX shows it live on the right side of the trading panel.
Initial margin (IM)
The minimum collateral required to open a position — notional value divided by leverage.
Maintenance margin (MM / MMR)
The minimum collateral that keeps a position alive. Drop below it and OKX triggers liquidation. Different position tiers carry different MMR percentages.
Notional value
Position size in dollar terms (qty × entry price). Not the same as margin posted.

Prices and indices

Mark price
What OKX uses to compute unrealised PnL and trigger liquidation — a smoothed index price plus a funding-rate premium, not the latest trade in the order book.
Index price
A weighted average of spot prices from several major exchanges. Mark price is anchored to it.
Last price
The most recent trade printed in the perp's own order book. Wicks can push it around but it isn't what triggers liquidation.
Basis
The gap between the perp price and the spot index. Usually tiny for perps, but can blow out a few percent in extreme conditions.
Slippage
Difference between the price you saw when you clicked and the price your market order actually fills at. Worst when book depth is thin.

Funding rate

Funding rate
An 8h cash flow between longs and shorts that keeps the perp aligned with spot. OKX settles at 00:00, 08:00 and 16:00 UTC every day.
Positive funding
Longs pay shorts — the perp is trading at a premium to spot, market is leaning long.
Negative funding
Shorts pay longs — the perp is at a discount to spot, market is leaning short.
Funding rate cap
OKX caps the single-period funding rate at ±0.15% for majors (BTC, ETH and similar); some altcoin perps run up to ±0.5%.
Annualised funding
The 8h rate multiplied by the number of settlement periods in a year — 3 × 365 = 1095 — to give a rough yearly cost of carry.

Liquidation

Liquidation
Margin ratio drops below the maintenance line and the engine closes your position to cap losses.
Liquidation / liq price
The exact price at which liquidation triggers, derived from leverage, position size and MMR. OKX shows it live in the order ticket.
Bankruptcy / clawback
An extreme move where the liquidation engine can't fill fast enough and losses exceed posted margin. OKX has an insurance fund to absorb this, but your position is already at zero.
Liquidation heatmap
Third-party visualisation that estimates "if price moves to X, how much forced liquidation will fire" based on public OI and leverage distribution. It's a model, not ground truth.
Auto-Deleveraging (ADL)
Last-resort mechanism: if the insurance fund can't cover, the engine forces a haircut on the most profitable opposing positions. Rarely triggers on OKX.

Orders and execution

Market order
Hits the best available price immediately. Speed at the cost of price control.
Limit order
Sits at the price you specify, waits for someone to cross it. Better fee tier, possible non-fill.
Take-profit / stop-loss (TP / SL)
Pre-set trigger price that auto-closes the position when hit, either market or limit.
Conditional order
Trigger isn't necessarily a price — could be time-based or indicator-based. OKX exposes these under Strategy Trading.
Trailing stop
A stop that ratchets along with favourable price, locking in unrealised gains until the move reverses past a threshold.
Maker / Taker
Maker adds liquidity to the book (lower fee, sometimes rebate). Taker removes liquidity (higher fee).

Strategies and methods

Grid
You define a price range, slice it into N levels, buy on the way down, sell on the way up. Earns range-bound chop; loses on trends.
Hedge
Opening an offsetting position to neutralise existing exposure. OKX perps allow simultaneous long and short on the same instrument under hedge mode.
Arbitrage
Exploiting a price gap across markets or instruments — funding arb, calendar spread arb, cross-exchange arb are the common three.
Kelly criterion
A formula that maps win rate and odds to the position fraction that maximises long-run growth. In crypto, half- or quarter-Kelly is the practical default to dampen variance.
Pyramiding
Adding to a winning position with decreasing size as trend confirms. The inverse — adding more as price moves against you — is the dangerous version.
Martingale
Doubling down on every loss to "make it back". Mathematically guaranteed to blow up given a long enough sequence; banned by any sane risk desk.

Market indicators

Open Interest (OI)
Total notional of contracts still open. Rising OI + rising price = new longs entering; rising OI + falling price = new shorts entering.
Long/Short Ratio (LSR)
Long positions over short positions. OKX publishes both "account ratio" and "position ratio" — different denominators, different stories.
Top Trader ratio
Same LSR concept, restricted to OKX's largest accounts. Often read as "smart-money positioning" — useful, not infallible.
Fair Value Gap (FVG)
A price range that traded through without enough volume — some chart-pattern traders treat it as a magnet for later price action.
Liquidity zone
An area packed with resting orders or stop clusters. Often gets swept then reverses.
NFP / FOMC / CPI
US macro prints that move dollar strength and risk appetite. Liquidity thins out around the release; leveraged risk grows accordingly.

Risk and other terms

Impermanent loss (IL)
Specific to DeFi liquidity providers — perps don't have it directly, but if you hedge an LP position with a perp, you'd want to model IL into your PnL.
ETF arbitrage
Captures price gaps between spot BTC/ETH ETFs and their underlying index. A perp can serve as one leg of the hedge.
Risk-free rate
The benchmark yield you'd get from lending USDT or holding T-bills — the baseline against which every leveraged strategy's ROI should be measured.
KYC
Know-Your-Customer identity verification. Most OKX functions require at least KYC1 or KYC2. This site is not part of that process.
Affiliate / referral code
OKX's partner programme. Our code is OK6512; sign up via any CTA on this site and the attribution applies automatically, at no extra cost to you. Full detail on the affiliate disclosure page.

Heads up: a glossary is a shortcut for understanding the long reads, not a textbook. Every term has more nuance — the articles walk through the details by topic.