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Traditional equity markets were not built for a world that never stops. They operate on fixed schedules opening, closing, and pausing in between while the forces that move them continue without interruption. Earnings are released after hours, macro signals emerge across time zones, and technological developments reshape sentiment overnight. By the time markets reopen, prices often adjust instantly, creating sharp discontinuities rather than smooth transitions.
For traders operating in global, always-on environments, this creates a structural mismatch. In crypto markets, liquidity is continuous and price discovery evolves in real time. In contrast, equity-referenced instruments remain tied to fragmented sessions, where gaps between closing and opening prices can introduce sudden and unpredictable shifts.
These gaps are more than a feature of market structure; they represent a technical risk. When prices jump abruptly rather than move progressively, leveraged positions can be affected not by sustained trends, but by discontinuities in price formation.
This raises a critical question: How do you maintain stability in a market where access is continuous, but the underlying reference is not?
This is the challenge KuCoin’s pricing framework is designed to address.
KuCoin’s Stock Index Perpetual Contracts are built around a key challenge in modern markets: maintaining stable pricing when underlying equity markets do not operate continuously.
Traditional exchanges open and close on fixed schedules, but the information that drives price earnings releases, macro signals, geopolitical developments, and AI-related news continues to evolve across time zones. When markets reopen, prices often adjust instantly rather than progressively.
This creates what is known as a pricing gap, a discontinuity between the last traded price and the new market level.
Within KuCoin’s 24/7 trading environment, where users can maintain exposures beyond traditional market hours, these gaps introduce a specific type of risk. Because liquidation thresholds are tied to price levels, a sudden jump can trigger position closures immediately, without the gradual movement that would normally allow traders to respond. In this context, the risk is not purely market-driven, it is also structural.
Without a pricing framework designed to account for session breaks, equity-referenced products can become vulnerable to distortions during off-hours, particularly when liquidity is limited or price feeds are fragmented. This is the exact mismatch KuCoin’s pricing architecture is designed to resolve.
To manage these challenges, KuCoin integrates a pricing system designed to operate within a 24/7 trading environment while accounting for the realities of traditional market structure.
Rather than relying solely on raw price feeds, KuCoin applies institutional-grade pricing mechanisms aimed at reducing distortions during off-hours and improving stability for leveraged positions.
Two key components define this approach: Session-Aware Mark Pricing and EMA-Based Transition Smoothing.
At the core of KuCoin’s system is the distinction between Index Price and Mark Price.
Index Price reflects external reference data from underlying equity markets
Mark Price is used to calculate unrealized PnL and determine liquidation thresholds
The challenge arises when traditional markets are closed and liquidity becomes limited. In these periods, isolated trades or thin order books can produce price prints that do not reflect broader market consensus.
KuCoin addresses this through Session-Aware Mark Pricing. The system distinguishes between standard trading hours and low-liquidity (off-hours) periods. During these off-hours, the Mark Price is adjusted using dedicated models designed to reduce the influence of outliers or low-volume activity.
In practical terms, this means pricing is less reactive to fragmented inputs and remains more closely anchored to a representative view of the market.
While session-aware pricing stabilises valuation during off-hours, another challenge emerges when markets reopen and prices shift abruptly.
To manage this, KuCoin applies EMA-Based Transition Smoothing. Instead of allowing the Mark Price to jump instantly to match a new Index Price, the system uses an Exponential Moving Average (EMA) to guide the transition.
In practical terms:
Price adjustments occur along a calculated curve
Transitions are more gradual rather than instantaneous
This reduces the likelihood of liquidation events triggered purely by discontinuity rather than sustained market movement, though it does not eliminate risk from sustained market volatility once the transition concludes.
For leveraged traders, this distinction is important. It allows price behaviour to reflect underlying trends more progressively, rather than reacting abruptly to session-based gaps.
These mechanisms are designed as risk-mitigation tools, not guarantees of protection. Market volatility remains a core feature of trading, and losses can still occur. However, by improving how prices are interpreted and transitioned particularly during off-hours KuCoin’s framework aims to reduce the impact of structural inefficiencies associated with fragmented market schedules.
For traders operating across both crypto and equity--referenced markets, expectations are evolving. Access is now expected to be continuous, and price behaviour needs to remain interpretable regardless of when markets move.
However, continuous access alone is not enough. Without a pricing framework designed to handle off-hours conditions, 24/7 trading can introduce new risks. Price behaviour may become fragmented, and leveraged positions may be exposed to sudden discontinuities rather than progressive movement.
By combining session-aware pricing with EMA-based transition smoothing, KuCoin creates a trading environment where price formation is better aligned with how global markets actually behave continuous in information flow, but structured in execution.
In practical terms, this becomes especially relevant when trading high-impact equity narratives such as Tesla, Nvidia, or Microsoft, where price sensitivity to news and macro signals is immediate and global.
Within KuCoin’s Stock Index Perpetual Contracts framework, traders can engage with these narratives on a 24/7 basis within a system designed to manage price transitions more consistently.
To encourage the adoption of the above, KuCoin has introduced a time-limited campaign running from March 13 to April 30, 2026 (UTC). This will offer a zero-taker-fee incentive to new eligible Futures users, where fees will be refunded after the event. This will provide a cost advantage to new entrants in the equity-referenced markets.
A tiered reward system based on TSLAUSDT-referenced instruments will also be introduced, where up to 500 USDT in
TSLAUSDT position airdrop:
200 USDT will be rewarded to new users for opening and activating a futures account.
300 USDT will be rewarded to new users for reaching 1,000 USDT in trading volume in Stock Index Perps.
For new users maintaining a position, position based rewards will also be offered based on the position size. These rewards will offer over 26% APY, based on the average position size.
Currently, the above-mentioned reward will be applicable to the TSLAUSDT and MSTRUSDT instruments. However, the same will be extended to other instruments such as NVDAUSDT, MSFTUSDT, AAPLUSDT, GOOGLUSDT, and ETF-referenced products.
The move to a 24/7, cross-asset class trading environment has already been underway. However, as the world of crypto and traditional finance continues to integrate, the trader finds themselves in a world where information flows constantly, yet the structures in which the markets sit are fragmented. In such a world, access to markets is clearly insufficient, and the manner in which price is both created and transitioned has to be considered on par with access.
The Stock Index Perpetual Contracts offered by KuCoin take the concept of continuous access and apply it to a system where price and access take a session-based approach, yet utilize EMA smoothing to create a system more conducive to the realities of equity-based trading in a 24/7 world.
The more the world of asset classes continues to integrate and the more the boundaries between them diminish, the more the advantage will be in being able to move effectively and fluidly between them.
Learn more or get started on KuCoin:
Platform: https://www.kucoin.com/
Futures: https://www.kucoin.com/futures
These contracts are synthetic derivative products designed to track the price movements of certain publicly available equity benchmarks. They are stablecoin-settled perpetual derivative contracts and do not represent ownership of any stocks or securities, and no shares will be delivered.
Access to these products may not be available in certain jurisdictions and may be restricted based on applicable laws and platform compliance requirements. Trading derivatives involves significant risk, including the potential loss of your entire margin. If you have any questions, please seek independent advice. Before trading, please review the Terms of Use, Futures Services Terms, and Risk Disclosure Statement (as updated from time to time).
