This seems silly. Perpetual futures generally trade at a much higher annualized premium to the underlying than quarterly futures. Also, quarterly futures regularly experience significant changes in the amount of contango, so it is possible to lose money if you are forced to exit early. Also, even if the amount of contango remains unchanged, if you are long the spot and short the quarterly, and the underlying goes up, you will have a negative USD balance that will either result in liquidation or paying spot borrow rates on USD.
So the quarterly version of the trade is a lot riskier and pays a lot less. Thanks.
This seems silly. Perpetual futures generally trade at a much higher annualized premium to the underlying than quarterly futures. Also, quarterly futures regularly experience significant changes in the amount of contango, so it is possible to lose money if you are forced to exit early. Also, even if the amount of contango remains unchanged, if you are long the spot and short the quarterly, and the underlying goes up, you will have a negative USD balance that will either result in liquidation or paying spot borrow rates on USD.
So the quarterly version of the trade is a lot riskier and pays a lot less. Thanks.
Really good points, with which I agree.
Coincidentally, Arthur Hayes just wrote about this: https://cryptohayes.medium.com/all-aboard-4d50435190d6