Buying a crypto token is the simplest way to trade its price, but it ties up the full cost of the coins and only pays when the price rises. Traders who want to go short, or to control a larger position with less capital, turn to derivatives, which are contracts that track a price without delivering the asset.
The perpetual future is the derivative that crypto markets made their own. It has no expiry date, so a position can stay open for as long as its margin holds, and regular payments between longs and shorts keep the contract price close to the asset it tracks. Economist Robert Shiller proposed the idea in 1992, but perpetual futures markets only grew up in crypto (source: Wikipedia, Perpetual futures).
What is an AAVEUSDT Perpetual?
If you want to trade the Aave governance token, BloFin lists it in two markets, and the AAVEUSDT Perpetual trades its price alone. It is a USDT-margined perpetual future: you post USDT as margin, open a long or a short on AAVE, and close the position to exit.
AAVE is the governance token of the Aave Protocol, an ERC-20 token deployed on Ethereum and available on both centralized and decentralized exchanges (source: Aave, AAVE Token). ERC-20 tokens are fungible, which means every unit of a given token is identical in type and value to every other unit (source: ethereum.org, ERC-20 Token Standard). That fungibility is why a purchase on AAVE/USDT Spot gives you real AAVE that you can hold, sell, or withdraw. A perpetual gives you something else: a position whose profit or loss follows the AAVE price and is paid in USDT, with no token changing hands when you close it.
| Market | What you hold after the trade | How you exit |
|---|---|---|
| AAVE/USDT Spot | AAVE tokens in your Spot account | Sell the tokens, or withdraw them to a wallet |
| AAVEUSDT Perpetual | A long or short position margined in USDT | Close the position |
AAVEUSDT is a linear contract, so the margin, profit and loss, and settlement are all in USDT. Each 1 USDT move in AAVE changes the position's value by the same amount whether the price is rising or falling. When you close a winning long, your Futures balance grows in USDT and never receives AAVE. To own the token itself, buy AAVE on the spot market and withdraw it to a wallet you control, because a perpetual position has nothing to withdraw.
Every order on either market pays a trading fee, and that fee comes out of the same USDT that keeps a position open. Check the current rates for both markets on the BloFin fee schedule before you size a first position.
Contract value, tick size, and maximum leverage
A perpetual's contract specifications set how much AAVE one contract represents (the contract value), the smallest price step (the tick size), the smallest order you can place (the minimum size), and the highest leverage allowed. BloFin shows the current AAVEUSDT values on the trading page, and they can change, so read them before each new position.
Suppose AAVE trades at 100 USDT and one contract is worth a tenth of an AAVE. Ten contracts then equal 1 AAVE, or 100 USDT of notional value, which is the size of the position measured at the current price. At 10x leverage that position needs 10 USDT of initial margin before fees, and at 20x it needs 5 USDT. Leverage changes only the margin you put up, while the position, and the USDT you gain or lose for each 1 USDT move in AAVE, stay exactly the same.
That is why high leverage and liquidation sit so close together. At 10x, a fall from 100 to 90 USDT costs the whole 10 USDT of initial margin, and at 20x a fall to 95 USDT does the same. Forced liquidation arrives before either point, because after you post initial margin to open a trade, you still have to hold enough maintenance margin to keep the position open (source: Wikipedia, Margin in Finance). When losses and trading fees push your remaining collateral below that maintenance threshold, the exchange closes the position automatically before the balance can turn negative.
A common sizing mistake starts with mixing contracts and tokens. If one contract is a tenth of an AAVE and you type 10 believing it means 10 AAVE, you open 1 AAVE of exposure, a tenth of your plan; make the opposite mistake and the position is ten times larger than you meant. Check which unit the size field is using, then confirm the notional value in USDT before you submit the order.
Maximum leverage is the ceiling the exchange allows, and most positions belong well below it. Position limits work the same way, since they cap how large an order or position can be while saying nothing about how much liquidity is waiting in the order book at your price.
How funding works on AAVEUSDT
Funding is a periodic payment between traders who hold long and short positions in the same perpetual. It takes the place of an expiry date: because a perpetual never settles against the spot market, these payments are what pull its price back toward the asset it tracks, and on AAVEUSDT they run on a fixed schedule.
When the funding rate is positive, longs pay shorts, and when it is negative, shorts pay longs. In crypto funding rates, the rate combines a fixed interest component with a variable premium index that measures the gap between the contract's mark price and the spot index. The payment equals the notional value of your position multiplied by the rate, and it settles on a fixed schedule, typically every eight hours. It applies only to positions open at settlement, so closing before the interval settles means you neither pay nor receive that payment.
Suppose you hold that 1 AAVE long, worth 100 USDT, and the rate at settlement is 0.0001, or one basis point. You pay 0.01 USDT to the short side at that settlement, and three settlements a day at the same rate cost 0.03 USDT. On a position ten times larger the cost is ten times larger. Each payment also comes out of your margin, which moves an isolated position's estimated liquidation price a little closer to the market.
Funding also shapes a common hedge. If you hold AAVE on AAVE/USDT Spot and short the same amount of AAVEUSDT, the price moves roughly cancel out, and a positive rate pays your short at each settlement. The two positions still sit in separate accounts, so when you close the futures position it delivers no tokens, selling the tokens leaves the short open, and a sharp rally can liquidate the short even while the tokens gain the same amount.
A dated future closes the gap with the spot price differently, by expiring, which forces anyone who wants to stay in the market to roll into a new contract (source: Wikipedia, Perpetual futures). That expiry is the main structural difference between perpetual and dated futures, and it explains why funding is a feature of the perpetual.
Mark price, last price, and liquidation
Three prices sit behind every AAVEUSDT position. The last price is the most recent trade on BloFin Futures and is what the chart shows. The index price blends spot prices from several major exchanges into a weighted average, and the mark price, built from the index, decides liquidation.
In derivatives trading, marking a position to market values the contract at its current fair value so unrealized gains and losses can be measured against the posted margin (source: Wikipedia, Mark-to-market accounting). On BloFin, the mark price and last price split that role in two. Mark price combines the spot index with a smoothed funding basis, and it drives liquidation, the margin ratio, and unrealized profit and loss. The last price reflects actual trades in the order book and determines realized profit and loss when an order fills.
That split explains a liquidation that looks impossible on the chart. Say you are long 1 AAVE at 10x on isolated margin, and your estimated liquidation price sits a little above 90 USDT. A burst of selling on spot exchanges drags the index, and with it the mark price, down to that level, while the last trade on AAVEUSDT stays higher because buyers on BloFin have not moved yet. The engine reads mark, so the position is closed, and the candle on your chart never touches your liquidation price. A stop-loss set to trigger on last price would not have fired either, because it waits for a trade at your level.
Two habits in BloFin futures risk management reduce that risk. When you set a take-profit or stop-loss order on BloFin, you can choose whether it triggers on last price, mark price, or index price. Select mark price when you want the stop to follow the same reference as liquidation. Because a stop-loss order turns into a market order once the stop price is reached, its fill can still slip in a fast-moving or thin market (source: Wikipedia, Exchange Order). Leave enough distance between your stop and the estimated liquidation price so the order fills before liquidation takes over.
The distance matters more in crypto than on a stock exchange that closes overnight. Crypto perpetuals are known for very high leverage, sometimes more than 100 times the margin (source: Wikipedia, Perpetual futures). AAVE also trades around the clock, so the move that reaches your liquidation price can arrive at any hour, including while you are away from the screen.
Isolated vs cross margin on AAVEUSDT
Isolated margin assigns a fixed amount of USDT to one position, so a liquidation can take only that amount. Cross margin lets every cross position draw on your whole Futures balance, which keeps a losing trade open longer but puts more money at risk. Pick the mode before you trade AAVE on BloFin.
The difference in crypto margin trading shows up in how collateral backs each trade. Under isolated margin, a position's margin ratio depends only on the collateral assigned to that trade, its unrealized profit or loss, and its own maintenance requirement and fees. Under cross margin, your whole available balance and the unrealized profit or loss across open positions share one pool of collateral. Margin requirements are reduced when futures positions offset one another, because the exchange measures risk across the combined exposure (source: Wikipedia, Margin in Finance). If an unhedged cross position moves far enough against you, however, it can drain the shared balance and pull other open trades into liquidation.
Take the 1 AAVE long at 10x again, with 10 USDT of isolated margin and another 90 USDT sitting in your Futures balance. If AAVE falls toward 90 USDT, the isolated position is liquidated and you lose roughly its 10 USDT, while the other 90 USDT stays untouched. Under cross margin, the same fall draws on the whole 100 USDT, so the position survives much further down, but if the price keeps falling the liquidation can take most of the balance. Isolated margin suits a single position with a planned stop, and cross margin suits traders who manage several positions and watch their total margin. Both modes are available in BloFin futures trading, and the mode you choose decides how much of your USDT a liquidation can reach.
Open interest is the other figure on the AAVEUSDT page worth reading before you size a position. It counts the contracts that are still open and not yet settled, so it rises when new positions open and falls when traders close them. Rising open interest means new money is entering the market. It does not predict where the price goes next (source: Investopedia, Open Interest). The figure BloFin shows counts its own AAVEUSDT contracts, so it describes positioning on one venue rather than across the whole market.
AAVE token, Aave supply, and the AAVEUSDT Perpetual
The same ticker can mean three different holdings: AAVE tokens in a wallet or Spot account, AAVE supplied to the Aave Protocol, or an AAVEUSDT position. Each carries a different risk, and closing one does nothing to the others, so be clear which one you hold before you plan an entry, a stop-loss, or an exit.
Holding the token is the plainest exposure. Its value moves with the AAVE price, you pay no funding, and nothing can liquidate a token you hold outright, so the main risks are a falling price and sending the coins to a wrong address or network.
Supplying AAVE to the Aave Protocol places the tokens in one of its liquidity pools (source: Aave, AAVE Token). The risk then moves on-chain to the smart contracts that hold the pool and the price oracles they read. If you borrow against your supplied tokens, the loan can be liquidated once its health factor drops below 1 and the collateral no longer covers the debt (source: Aave, Health Factor and Liquidations). Those rules are part of how the Aave protocol works, and they run entirely apart from your BloFin account.
The perpetual carries margin risk. You can be right about the direction and still lose the position if the mark price reaches your liquidation price first, if funding payments wear down your margin, or if your leverage left too little room for normal swings. A profitable AAVEUSDT position pays out in USDT, and it never held AAVE at any point, so profit on the perpetual and ownership of the token are two separate goals that need two separate trades.
Looking to trade AAVE tokens on BloFin? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, then open the AAVE/USDT Spot trading page or the AAVEUSDT Perpetual page.
Frequently asked questions
Does holding AAVEUSDT give you a vote in Aave governance?
Voting in Aave governance belongs to holders of the token. AAVE holders can vote on protocol proposals themselves or delegate their voting power to another address, and that process decides how the protocol changes over time (source: Aave, AAVE Token). An AAVEUSDT position is a price contract traded on BloFin, so it carries no tokens and no voting power. If governance matters to you, hold AAVE in a wallet you control and vote or delegate from there, because a perpetual can track the same price but cannot cast a vote.
What is the bankruptcy price on an AAVEUSDT position?
A position reaches its bankruptcy price at the level where its losses equal the collateral posted for the trade, leaving zero equity. That level sits beyond the liquidation price, because liquidation triggers as soon as the mark price pushes your margin ratio down to the maintenance requirement while a small collateral buffer still remains. Once liquidation triggers, the liquidation engine takes control of the position and places orders to close or reduce it in the market. The gap between the liquidation price and the bankruptcy price gives the engine room to absorb closing costs and slippage.
Who covers the loss when a liquidated position closes at a worse price?
An exchange insurance fund covers that shortfall first. The insurance fund is a reserve pool built from exchange contributions and liquidation fees, and it absorbs the deficit when a liquidated position fills at a worse price than its bankruptcy price. That pool exists to keep losses on bankrupt positions from falling directly on other traders. If a violent market move drains the insurance fund, auto-deleveraging activates as a last resort, which in crypto perpetuals means profitable traders with high leverage on the opposite side give up part of their gains to cover the loss (source: Wikipedia, Perpetual futures).
Does a positive funding rate mean you should short AAVEUSDT?
A positive rate means long positions are paying short positions at each settlement, which tells you how traders are positioned and says nothing certain about where the price goes. Longs can stay crowded through a strong rally, and a short that collects funding can still lose far more on price than the payments bring in. Treat the rate as a holding cost or a source of income that you add to your plan, then decide direction from your own setup, with an entry, a stop-loss, and a target that make sense without the funding.
How is an AAVEUSDT Perpetual different from an inverse perpetual?
An inverse perpetual uses the coin itself as margin and settles profit and loss in that coin, and before stablecoins spread it was the standard design on crypto exchanges. Its profit and loss is non-linear, so long positions get liquidated faster when the price falls than short positions do when it rises (source: Wikipedia, Perpetual futures). AAVEUSDT is linear, with margin and results in USDT, so the value of your collateral stays put while AAVE moves and only the position itself gains or loses.
How is open interest different from trading volume?
Volume counts every contract that changes hands, while open interest counts only the contracts that remain open. When one trader sells existing contracts to a newcomer, volume rises by the size of the trade but open interest stays the same, because a position simply passed to someone else. Open interest falls on a day when more positions close than open, and it climbs when new longs and shorts outnumber the closures (source: Investopedia, Open Interest). Reading both together shows whether a move on AAVEUSDT comes with fresh positions or with existing ones changing hands.
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. Primary sources include BloFin listing facts for AAVEUSDT, BloFin Academy guides on futures risk management, leverage and liquidation, crypto funding rates, mark price versus last price, crypto margin trading, and closing a trade, Aave token and liquidation documentation, the Ethereum ERC-20 token standard, Wikipedia on perpetual futures, margin, mark-to-market accounting, and exchange orders, and Investopedia on open interest. All facts independently verified against cited documentation current as of October 2026.
This article is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not financial, investment, trading, or legal advice. Cryptocurrency can lose value. Borrowing on Aave can lead to liquidation if the health factor drops below 1. Spot AAVE/USDT buys the token. An AAVEUSDT Perpetual is a contract on the price. Do your own research. Consider your circumstances before using any protocol or trading any asset.