Position breakdown
| Metric | Value |
|---|
Carry cost, not a funding auction: why Ostium's fee model is structurally different
Most crypto perps (GMX, Hyperliquid, dYdX, Binance) charge a funding rate designed to converge the perp price to spot — longs and shorts exchange payments every few hours, and the rate is driven by order-book/oracle premium, not by any real-world interest rate. Ostium, a leveraged RWA perp DEX for forex, commodities, indices and crypto, instead charges a rollover fee anchored to real-world carry benchmarks: SOFR-derived rates for stocks/indices, futures term structure for commodities and FX. It's published on-chain and updated daily by keepers, and on many pairs it's two-sided — the side with unfavorable carry pays, the side with favorable carry can actually earn rollover, the same way a traditional FX carry trade works.
On top of rollover, Ostium charges a flat opening fee (roughly 4 bps of notional) and a small flat oracle fee per on-chain action; there's no separate liquidation penalty fee — liquidation happens when losses (price P&L plus accumulated opening and rollover fees) erode a position's equity down to a backstop level around 25% of the original collateral. Because that backstop is defined as a fraction of margin, not a fixed price distance, the leverage you choose directly compresses how far price has to move to hit it: at 200x, roughly a 0.375% adverse move burns the whole buffer before any fees are counted.
The distinct risk this calculator surfaces: rollover is charged on your full notional every day you hold, regardless of price. At high leverage the notional is huge relative to margin, so the daily rollover bill chews through your buffer even with zero price movement — this calculator solves for exactly how many days that takes, which is a genuinely different failure mode than an 8-hour crypto funding reset.
FAQ
What is Ostium's rollover fee, and how is it different from a perpetual funding rate?
Ostium is a leveraged RWA perp DEX (forex, commodities, indices, plus crypto) that does not charge a typical zero-sum crypto funding rate paid between longs and shorts every few hours. Instead it charges a rollover fee anchored to real-world carry costs — interest-rate differentials (SOFR for stocks/indices), futures term structure for commodities and FX, published on-chain and updated daily. Rollover is often two-sided: depending on which side of the trade has the favorable carry, one side can actually earn rollover instead of paying it, unlike typical perp funding which is designed to net toward zero for the protocol.
How does Ostium's liquidation threshold work, and why does it depend on leverage?
Ostium uses a margin-based backstop liquidation: a position is liquidated once losses (from price movement plus accumulated fees) erode its equity down to roughly 25% of the original collateral. Because that 25% backstop is a fixed fraction of margin rather than a fixed price distance, higher leverage compresses the price move needed to hit it — at 200x leverage a roughly 0.375% adverse move burns through the entire buffer, versus a much larger cushion at 10x. This calculator converts that margin-based backstop into an actual liquidation price for your position.
Can rollover fees alone liquidate a position even if the price never moves?
Yes, and this is the core risk this calculator highlights. Because rollover is a running carry cost charged on your full notional position size every day you hold, it eats directly into your margin buffer over time — completely independent of price. At high leverage the notional is large relative to your margin, so the daily rollover charge is a bigger percentage of your cushion. This calculator computes the number of days until rollover fees alone (assuming zero price movement) would erode your margin down to the 25% liquidation backstop, which is a distinct risk from a normal crypto perp's 8-hour funding reset.
What does this calculator not capture?
This models the core opening-fee + rollover-fee + margin-backstop mechanic using Ostium's published fee structure (roughly a 4 bps flat opening fee and rollover rates anchored to real-world carry benchmarks), but real trading also involves the $0.10 oracle fee per action, day-trading/market-hours guardrails on stock markets, spread/execution slippage, and the fact that rollover rates themselves change daily as underlying benchmark rates move. Treat the liquidation price and days-to-liquidation figures here as directional estimates from the fee mechanic, not a guarantee of Ostium's exact on-chain trigger.