BeaconPrerequisites: What You Need to Know First
Before placing your first perpetual futures trade, you need a solid understanding of several core concepts. First, make sure you understand what perpetual futures are - derivative contracts that track an asset's price without expiration, allowing both long and short positions with leverage. You should also understand the funding rate mechanism that keeps perp prices aligned with spot markets, as it directly affects your cost of holding a position.
Equally important is understanding leverage and liquidation. Leverage amplifies your position size relative to your margin, which amplifies both profits and losses. If the market moves against you far enough, your position will be liquidated - forcibly closed with your margin seized. Before any leveraged trade, you should be able to calculate your liquidation price and understand the implications.
Finally, you need capital you are genuinely willing to lose. This is not a cliche - it is practical advice. Perpetual futures trading, especially with leverage, carries real risk of total loss on any individual trade. Starting with money you need for rent or bills creates emotional pressure that leads to poor decisions. Start with a small amount dedicated to learning.
Choosing a Platform and Setting Up
Your choice of trading platform significantly impacts your experience. Centralized exchanges (CEXs) like Binance and Bybit offer familiar interfaces and high liquidity but require KYC verification, and your funds are held by the exchange. Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) like Hyperliquid offer self-custody, no KYC, and on-chain transparency, but require a crypto wallet and some familiarity with DeFi.
For this guide, we will focus on Hyperliquid, which combines the performance of a centralized exchange with the benefits of decentralization. To set up, install a wallet like MetaMask, bridge USDC from Arbitrum to Hyperliquid, and connect your wallet to the trading interface. The entire process takes just minutes and requires no personal information.
Once set up, familiarize yourself with the trading interface. Locate the order entry panel, the order book, the chart, and your positions panel. Before placing any real trades, explore all available markets and understand the differences between limit orders, market orders, and conditional orders like stop-losses and take-profits.
Opening Your First Position
Start by selecting the asset you want to trade. Major assets like BTC and ETH are recommended for beginners because they have the deepest liquidity, tightest spreads, and most predictable volatility. Avoid illiquid altcoin perps until you are comfortable with the mechanics - their wider spreads and sudden price spikes make them harder to trade.
Next, decide your direction and leverage. If your analysis suggests the price will rise, you will go long. If you expect a decline, go short. Set your leverage conservatively - 2x to 3x for beginners. Then determine your position size. Use the liquidation calculator to verify that your liquidation price is comfortably far from the current price.
Choose your order type. A market order executes immediately at the best available price - good for entering quickly but you pay a taker fee and may get slight slippage. A limit order lets you specify the exact price you want - you only enter when the market reaches your price, and you often pay a lower maker fee. For your first trades, limit orders at logical support or resistance levels are a disciplined approach.
Immediately after opening your position, set a stop-loss order. This is non-negotiable. Determine the maximum amount you are willing to lose on this trade (1-2% of your total capital is a common rule), calculate the price level that corresponds to that loss, and place your stop-loss there. Then set a take-profit order at your target price. Having both orders in place before you walk away from the screen is essential discipline.
Managing Risk and Position Sizing
Risk management is what separates profitable traders from those who blow up their accounts. The core principle is simple: never risk more than a small percentage of your total capital on a single trade. If your trading account has $5,000, risking 2% means your maximum loss per trade is $100. This ensures that even a string of losses does not catastrophically damage your account.
To implement this, work backwards from your risk tolerance. If your maximum loss is $100 and your stop-loss is 2% below your entry price, your position size should be $5,000 (so that a 2% move equals $100). At 5x leverage, this requires $1,000 of margin. Use the PnL calculator to verify your profit and loss at various price levels before entering the trade.
Avoid common mistakes: do not move your stop-loss further away to avoid taking a loss, do not add to a losing position hoping for a reversal, and do not increase your leverage after a losing streak to "make it back." These behaviors are driven by emotion and consistently lead to larger losses. Your risk parameters should be set before the trade is opened and respected without exception.
Funding Rate Considerations and Exit Strategies
If you plan to hold a position for more than a few hours, the funding rate becomes a meaningful factor. Check the current funding rate for your asset before entering a trade. If funding is high and positive and you are going long, you will be paying a premium every 8 hours. Factor this cost into your profit target - your trade needs to overcome both the funding cost and trading fees to be profitable.
For swing trades lasting days or weeks, funding can accumulate into a significant expense or income stream. Some traders time their entries to coincide with favorable funding conditions, or even switch from long to short (or vice versa) when funding becomes extremely one-sided. Being on the receiving end of funding is like earning interest on your position.
Your exit strategy should be defined before you enter. There are several approaches: fixed take-profit and stop-loss levels (the simplest), trailing stop-losses that follow the price as it moves in your favor, time-based exits (closing after a set period regardless of profit/loss), and signal-based exits (closing when your technical analysis shows the trend is weakening).
The best traders combine multiple approaches. Set a fixed stop-loss for worst-case protection, a take-profit for your primary target, and then monitor the trade for signs that you should exit early. Keep a trading journal to record your entries, exits, reasoning, and results. Over time, patterns will emerge that help you refine your strategy and improve your results.