LONDON, January 7, 2026, 23:27 GMT
Binance Futures said on Wednesday it will launch a silver perpetual futures contract that lets users trade the metal with up to 50 times leverage. The USDT-margined XAGUSDT contract, which tracks the price of one troy ounce of silver in U.S. dollars, was scheduled to start trading at 10:00 UTC, and Binance said it may tweak terms such as funding fees and margins as market conditions change. 1
The listing gives crypto traders a 24/7 way to take a view on a commodity that has been driving the precious-metals rally, without owning physical metal or dealing with expiry dates. It also extends Binance’s push beyond digital assets after the exchange debuted perpetual contracts tied to gold in recent weeks. 2
Silver surged 147% in 2025 and briefly hit about $83.75 an ounce, while bitcoin ended the year down more than 5%, CoinDesk reported in coverage carried by Moomoo. The metals move has been linked to fiscal and inflation concerns, and silver also got a lift from demand in solar panels and electronics, the report said. 3
Perpetual futures, often called perps, do not expire; they use a “funding” mechanism — periodic payments between long and short traders — to keep the contract price close to the spot market. Binance said funding on the silver perp will be settled every four hours with the rate capped at plus or minus 2%, and the minimum notional trade will be 5 USDT. The exchange added that a futures listing does not imply a spot listing and said users can post margin in other assets such as bitcoin, subject to “haircuts”, or discounts applied to the collateral value. 4
The contract will be folded into Binance’s new-listing fee promotion, with all users paying zero maker fees — charged to orders that add liquidity — for the first 10 days, according to a Cryptopolitan report that cited the exchange. Binance also plans to enable futures copy trading within 24 hours of launch, letting users mirror selected traders. 5
Smaller venues such as MEXC and BTCC already offered silver contracts, but Binance is the first major exchange to bring a silver perpetual to its futures platform at that scale, CoinCentral said. The same report said competition is widening as some big crypto firms look at adding other asset classes over time. 6
XAG, the silver price tracked by CoinGlass, was about $78.42 late Wednesday, down 2.24% over 24 hours. XAG-linked futures tracked by the site showed roughly $19.9 million in 24-hour trading volume and about $3.38 million in open interest, with around $49,000 in liquidations over the same period. 7
Analysts have tied the broader precious-metals move to expectations of easier U.S. policy and anxiety about government finances. “…continued U.S. debt are all kind of moving gold, silver, platinum, and palladium higher,” said Bart Melek, global head of commodity strategy at TD Securities, in a Jan. 2 Reuters report. 8
But the new product comes with the usual futures risks, sharpened by the leverage on offer. A 1% move in silver can wipe out margin at 50x, and funding payments can flip quickly as positioning gets crowded — a bad mix if liquidity thins out when volatility spikes.
