Perpetual futures allow traders to go long or short with leverage without holding the underlying token. Once perps exist, price discovery becomes more efficient and overall liquidity typically deepens beyond spot alone.

From a token-economic perspective, perps weaken the direct link between spot demand drivers and short-term price action. In a spot-only market, utilities, unlocks, and emissions more directly impact supply-demand imbalances. With perps, traders can express bearish or bullish views synthetically. Price becomes more driven by marginal positioning and funding dynamics than physical token flows. Efficiency increases, but the short-term impact of incremental utility or emissions changes declines.

For market makers, perps materially improve hedging efficiency. In a loan + call structure, delta hedging can occur synthetically via perps rather than through spot selling. This reduces direct sell pressure, improves capital efficiency, and supports tighter spreads and deeper spot books.

Finally, deep perp liquidity reduces the need for oversized token loans. When two-sided flow is strong, market makers do not need to warehouse large inventories.