Perpetual futures contracts are a type of derivative that allows traders to speculate on the price of digital assets without an expiration date. The Futures Open Interest Cash Margin Perpetual metric measures the total amount of funds (in USD value) allocated in open perpetual futures contracts that are collateralized with cash. This metric is useful for assessing the level of market participation and the amount of capital at risk in cash-margined perpetual futures. For example, you might ask, "What is the total cash-margined open interest for Ethereum perpetual futures across all exchanges?"

This is the Point-in-Time (PiT) variant of Futures Open Interest Cash Margin Perpetual. PiT metrics are strictly append-only and their history is immutable. The historic data does not necessarily reflect the best current knowledge, but the information at the time when a data point was first computed. PiT metrics are ideal candidates for applications in model backtesting and related quantitative purposes. Read our article on PiT metrics for more information.