MC Markets Glossary: Essential Terms for Every Trader

Term

Definition

Available Margin

The portion of your total equity that can be used to open new positions or cover fees and losses.

Cross Margin

A margin mode where all available funds in your account can serve as margin for a single position, helping prevent premature liquidation of individual positions.

Earn

Flexible Savings feature. Deposit idle assets from your spot account into the savings fund pool and earn daily interest based on a dynamic annualized yield. No lock-up period — deposit and withdraw anytime.

Funding Rate

A periodic fee paid to balance long and short positions. When the market is imbalanced, the dominant side pays the funding rate to the other to encourage market equilibrium.

Fund Password

A separate password that protects sensitive asset operations. Withdrawals, vault withdrawals, and other sensitive operations require entering the Fund Password for secondary confirmation. Rules: 8-16 characters, must include upper and lower case letters, digits, and special characters.

Gap

Refers to a price range on a chart of an asset (such as a stock, futures contract, or cryptocurrency) where no trading occurred during a given trading session or between continuous market periods. This phenomenon typically arises when major news or events cause a sudden imbalance between supply and demand, resulting in a visible blank space on the price chart.

Impact Cost

A measure of how your order size affects market liquidity. Larger orders mean higher impact cost. The system shows you an estimate before you submit your trades.

Liquidations

When your margin falls below the Maintenance Margin Ratio (MMR), the system automatically closes your position to prevent further losses. Our liquidation process uses the Mark Price, not manipulable last traded prices.

Liquidity

The ease of buying or selling an asset without significantly affecting its price. MC Markets provides continuous liquidity through its dynamic liquidity model for efficient trade execution.

Margin

The funds required to open and maintain positions. It acts as collateral, allowing you to control a larger position than your account balance.

Margin Ratio

A metric measuring position health, used to determine proximity to liquidation thresholds.

Mark Price

The platform's fair value benchmark, aggregated from multiple external oracle prices and internal data. It's used for PnL calculations, liquidations, and risk controls to prevent manipulation from anomalous trades.

Mid-Price Input

A smart limit order feature based on the market "mid-price" (average of the latest bid and ask). Upon selection, the system auto-populates the limit price at the real-time mid-price for easy manual adjustments, balancing fair pricing with execution efficiency.

MMR (Maintenance Margin Ratio)

The minimum margin ratio required to maintain a position. Falling below this triggers forced liquidation to protect your account and the platform from further losses.

Position Value

The total value of your position in USDC. For example, buying 1 BTC at $50,000 gives a nominal value of $50,000.

Oracle

External data providers supplying independent, verified spot reference prices. MC Markets uses these for calibration and risk comparisons.

PnL (Profit and Loss)

Your trading profits or losses. Unrealized PnL is the floating profit/loss on open positions; Realized PnL is the net profit/loss from closed trades.

Price Penetration

A technical analysis concept describing a price movement that breaks through a specific level, such as support, resistance, a trendline, or a moving average. Such a movement suggests that buying or selling pressure has temporarily overcome the prevailing market consensus, potentially signaling a trend reversal, continuation, or merely a false breakout that traders should watch carefully.

Proof of Reserves

MC Markets publicly discloses its on-chain reserve data, maintaining a reserve ratio of 100% or above at all times to ensure full coverage of user assets. Users can view the latest reserve ratio, total user asset value, and total platform reserve value on the [Proof of Reserves] page.

Swap

Instant asset conversion within your account, powered by the platform's internal pricing engine. No blockchain confirmation needed.

Skew

A measure of imbalance between long and short positions on the platform. High skew indicates one-sided markets, influencing funding rates.

Tick

The smallest price increment for an asset. For example, BTCUSD typically ticks at $1.0, while ETHUSD at $0.1.

Total Account Value

The net value of your entire account, including all perpetual, spot, unrealized & realized profit and losses, and the total value of your vault. It's a comprehensive indicator of account health.

Vault

Allows you to deposit funds into an automated strategy for passive returns. Vault assets are ring-fenced from trading risk through independent hedging.