Pesquisa verificada por fontes: Kucoin / Binance / OKX

What KuCoin is listing

KuCoin's announcement, published at 03:55 UTC on 12 October (11:55 Beijing time), lists five contracts, all opening at 09:00 UTC (17:00 Beijing time):

The common terms are the same for all five: settlement in USDT, funding settled every eight hours with a cap of 2% either way, a tick size of 0.01 and trading hours of 24/7. KuCoin says it may change tick size, maximum leverage and maintenance margin "depending on market risk conditions".

The notice is explicit about what these are not. In KuCoin's words, they are synthetic, stablecoin-settled derivatives that "do not represent ownership of any stocks or securities", and no shares are delivered. Access may be restricted in some jurisdictions. KuCoin uses the label "stock index perpetual" even for single stocks; in practice these are single-name and single-fund price contracts.

KuCoin's public contract data for SKUUUSDTM adds the details the announcement leaves out: an initial margin of 5% (which is where 20x comes from), a maintenance margin of 2.5%, a maker fee of 0.02% and a taker fee of 0.06%, and a contract size of 0.1 SKUU. The listed first open time matches 09:00 UTC on 12 October.

Why SKUU is the contract to read twice

SKUU is not SK Hynix stock. It is an exchange-traded fund from GraniteShares that seeks twice the daily performance of SK Hynix. GraniteShares' fund page lists it as a 2x long single-stock daily fund, launched on 14 July 2026, that gets its exposure through swaps totalling 200% of notional, collateralised by Treasury bills and cash. The issuer also explains the daily reset: because the fund rebalances to 2x every day, its returns over longer periods "may deviate significantly" from twice the stock's return.

Now add KuCoin's 20x on top. By our arithmetic:

• Exposure. 20x on a fund that moves 2x per day is about 40 times SK Hynix's daily move on your margin.
• Liquidation distance. With 5% initial margin and 2.5% maintenance margin, a full 20x position has roughly a 2.5% cushion before it reaches maintenance, before fees and funding. A 2.5% fall in SKUU corresponds to about a 1.25% fall in SK Hynix on the day. SK Hynix can move that much in minutes.
• Decay. The daily reset means a long SKUU contract held through a choppy week can lose value even if SK Hynix ends the week flat. A perpetual on SKUU inherits that path dependence.

KuCoin is not alone in putting leverage on leveraged funds. OKX's own notice for its new TQQQUSD X-Perp, which opens on the same day, warns that the contract "tracks a fund that already provides daily leveraged or inverse exposure" and that trading it with leverage "may further increase market exposure and amplify liquidation risk and losses." We covered that listing in our OKX X-Perps explainer.

Our data: SK Hynix funding woke up at Monday's open

SK Hynix already trades as a perpetual on Binance and OKX, and it sits on NexuAlpha's funding-rate board. What happened there over the weekend shows how these stock perps behave around market hours.

Binance's settlement history for SKHYNIXUSDT shows a funding rate of exactly 0% at every four-hour settlement from 20:00 UTC on Friday, 10 October, through 00:00 UTC on Monday, 12 October: eight settlements in a row at zero. The first nonzero settlement came at 04:00 UTC on Monday, at +0.047398%, with the mark price at 1,213.13. Korea's stock market opens at 09:00 local time, which is 00:00 UTC, so this was the first settlement after the underlying market reopened.

When we read our feed at 04:43 UTC, the predicted next rate was +0.049101% on Binance and +0.042273% on OKX; Binance's own premium index showed +0.049313% a few minutes later for the 08:00 UTC settlement. Binance caps this contract's funding at 0.5% per four-hour period.

What does +0.047% every four hours cost? By our arithmetic, six settlements a day add up to about 0.28% of notional per day for longs if the rate holds. On a 10x position that is about 2.8% of your margin each day, before trading fees. Positive funding means longs pay shorts, so the market was paying to be long SK Hynix as Korea opened.

The contract is not a sideshow. Binance's 24-hour SKHYNIXUSDT volume was $403.4 million, and open interest stood at 252,224 contracts; at the mark price of 1,227.48, that is about $310 million by our arithmetic. The price itself was nearly flat, down 0.28% over 24 hours, so the funding jump reflected positioning, not a big move.

Two lessons carry over to KuCoin's new contracts. First, funding on stock perps can sit at zero while the stock market is shut and then switch on at the open, so the cost of holding changes with the clock. Second, KuCoin's cap is 2% per eight hours, far wider than Binance's 0.5% per four hours on SK Hynix, which means funding on the new contracts can, in principle, get much more expensive in a crowded market.

What we could not verify

• Weekend and overnight pricing. The announcement says the contracts trade 24/7 but does not say how the index price is formed while Nasdaq is closed. KuCoin points to separate product documentation, which we did not review for this article.
• TMFUSDT's exact reference. KuCoin describes it as tracking the ICE U.S. Treasury 20+ Year Bond Index. We did not confirm whether the contract prices off the index itself or off a fund that uses the TMF ticker, so check the contract specification before trading it.
• Country availability. KuCoin says access depends on jurisdiction but does not list the countries.

What to watch

• First-day spreads and funding on KuCoin's five contracts after 09:00 UTC; new stock perps often open with wide spreads and volatile funding.
• SK Hynix funding on our funding board through the Korean session; if it stays near +0.05% per four hours, holding longs gets expensive.
• Margin changes. KuCoin reserves the right to change leverage and maintenance margin; a cut in maximum leverage can force existing positions to add margin.
• US market hours. AppLovin, Moderna, SoFi and SKUU trade on Nasdaq during US hours; the perps will be most closely anchored then.

How to act on this

If you want stock exposure through perps, treat leverage on single stocks and leveraged funds as the risky part, not the ticker. Keep leverage low enough that an ordinary daily move does not liquidate you, prefer contracts on the stock itself over contracts on a 2x fund, check the funding interval and cap before you hold overnight, and remember that none of these contracts gives you shares or dividends by default. If you trade stock perps on a partner venue, fees are the part you control: OKX charges regular accounts 0.02% maker and 0.05% taker on USDT perpetuals, and registering with code nexu888 returns 40% of trading fees, settled hourly; Bitget charges 0.02% and 0.06% and returns up to 60% with the same code nexu888, settled daily. See the OKX profile and the Bitget profile, and our guide to tokenized stocks versus perpetuals.

Quick answers

What stock perps did KuCoin list on 12 October 2026? APPUSDT (AppLovin), MRNAUSDT (Moderna), SOFIUSDT (SoFi), TMFUSDT (a contract KuCoin says tracks the ICE U.S. Treasury 20+ Year Bond Index) and SKUUUSDT (GraniteShares 2x Long SK Hynix Daily ETF), opening at 09:00 UTC with up to 20x leverage.

Do KuCoin stock perps give you shares? No. KuCoin says they are synthetic, USDT-settled derivatives that do not represent ownership and deliver no shares.

What is SKUU? A GraniteShares ETF launched on 14 July 2026 that seeks twice SK Hynix's daily return, using swaps worth 200% of its assets.

How risky is 20x on SKUU? By our arithmetic, a full-leverage position has about a 2.5% cushion in SKUU, which is roughly a 1.25% move in SK Hynix.

Why did SK Hynix funding jump on Monday? Binance's SKHYNIXUSDT funding was 0% for eight weekend settlements and turned positive at +0.047% at 04:00 UTC, the first settlement after Korea's market opened; longs now pay shorts.

Limits of this article

KuCoin's terms are taken from its announcement and public contract data as published on 12 October 2026 and may change. Funding, open interest and prices were read between 04:43 and 04:51 UTC on 12 October 2026 and will have changed. Liquidation distances, daily funding costs and dollar open interest are our approximate arithmetic and ignore fees, funding and mark-price differences. KuCoin is not a NexuAlpha partner. This is market information and analysis, not a forecast or investment advice. Partner links may earn NexuAlpha a commission paid by the exchange, at no extra cost to you.