# Spot vs Futures

### What is the difference between Spot and Futures Trading?

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* **Spot**:  Buy/sell crypto for immediate delivery
* **Futures**:  Buy/sell leveraged derivatives that represent the value of an asset
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#### Spot Market Trading

In a spot market, assets are being traded with instant delivery. This implies that those assets, for example, ETH, BNKD, or XBNK, are exchanged directly between market participants. Buyers and sellers have direct ownership of the underlying assets and will be able to utilize them in whatever way they want.

**Futures Market Trading**

In a traditional Futures market, the delivery of underlying assets and Futures contracts are settled on a predetermined future date, instead of directly trading assets (as in a spot market). 

**Perpetual Futures Trading**

Perpetual Futures contracts allow traders to speculate on the future price of a given asset by buying (going long) or selling (going short) perpetual futures contracts. Unlike typical futures, perpetual Futures do not expire and remain effective until the trader closes their position.