Futures

OCX lists dated futures — contracts that expire and cash-settle in USDC on a specific date. Each contract is marked to the price of the matching contract on the reference market.

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The mark is the reference contract’s price

Every OCX dated future corresponds to a listed futures contract on the reference market — the same underlying and delivery month. OCX marks it to that contract’s live price. This is correct under any shape of the curve:

• Contango — deferred months trade above spot.
• Backwardation — deferred months trade below spot.

Trades on OCX do not move the mark; they only print to the OCX tape. This keeps position values, margin, and liquidation anchored to the reference market rather than to a thin local book.

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Cost of carry

Intuitively, a future trades away from spot because holding the underlying to a future date has a financing (and, for commodities, storage and convenience) cost. For a small set of underlyings, when the reference contract’s price is stale, OCX falls back to a cost-of-carry fair value: $$F = S \times \left(1 + \text{APR} \times \frac{t}{365}\right)$$ where $S$ is the underlying spot price, $t$ is the number of days to expiry, and $\text{APR}$ is an annualized carry rate for that underlying. As expiry approaches, $t \to 0$ and the fair value converges to spot. Otherwise a stale reference price is not replaced — the mark simply stops updating until the reference recovers, and markUpdatedAt shows its age.

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No funding

Dated futures do not exchange periodic funding payments between longs and shorts. Their price converges to the underlying through expiry and settlement.

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Settlement

At expiry the market halts, resting orders are cancelled, and open positions are cash-settled in USDC at the settlement price. OCX uses an official settlement fixing for the contract where one is recorded; otherwise its own last trade, if recent and in line with the reference mark; otherwise the reference mark. Marks and contract terms for every dated future are available via GET /fut/markets and GET /fut/market-stats.