Overview
Ascend Perpetuals is a leveraged trading platform where you go long or short on the live probability of real-world event outcomes. You pick a market — for example, "Will the Fed cut rates in March?" — see the current probability priced as a percentage, and take a position on whether that percentage will rise or fall, with up to 1001 times leverage on your collateral. Positions have no expiry, so you can scale in and out as the odds move instead of waiting for the event to resolve1.
Think of it like trading a stock that tracks "how probable is this outcome" instead of a company's share price. Ascend Perpetuals is the leveraged trading interface behind Ascend Market, built on Midnight — a privacy-focused chain linked to Cardano — with order signing supported from Cardano, Ethereum, and Solana wallets2.
Key Features
- Trade the move in the odds, not just the final result. Each market lists a live probability percentage that updates as news flows in. You take a long or short position on that number and your gain or loss tracks how it moves, instead of waiting for the underlying event to resolve3.
- Full order book with no expiry on positions. The platform uses a central limit order book with limit orders, market orders, and standard perpetual execution. A position stays open as long as the market is live and your collateral covers it3.
- Up to 1001 times leverage. Capital efficiency designed for active traders — a thousand units of collateral can hold the same probability exposure as ten thousand locked into a traditional prediction market share, with the rest of the balance staying liquid2.
- Cryptographic checks at every step. Each user action — matching, risk, accounts, fund control, event lifecycle — is verified by a zero-knowledge proof on Midnight before any balance changes. A zero-knowledge proof is a math check that confirms a step happened correctly without revealing the underlying details1.
- Sign from the wallet you already use. Cardano, Ethereum, and Solana wallets all work for deposits and order signing. Matching and final settlement happen on Midnight, which inherits security from Cardano as its partner chain1.
What to Expect
The marketing site at ascend.market explains the product, while the working app runs on testnet.ascend.market, a practice version with no real money. Inside the app, you pick a market — an election, a sports final, a crypto price target, a macroeconomic release — choose long or short on the live probability, set a position size and leverage within the market's margin rules, and watch the percentage move in real time on an order book3.
Markets span politics, sports, geopolitics, cryptocurrency conditions, macroeconomic releases, and commodities or stock direction. Ascend Perpetuals positions itself against Polymarket and Kalshi, services where you typically buy a yes-or-no share and hold it. Ascend Perpetuals is built instead for traders who want to hedge, scale in and out, and use leverage on the same outcomes2.
The product is in public testnet, and an independent security audit has not been identified at this time. Anyone trying the platform should treat practice-network balances as test value and confirm live-network status on Ascend's own channels — its status page, block explorer, or X account — before sending real funds.
