Ascend Adds Oil Perps on Midnight

Ascend Market has announced that oil perpetual contracts are live on its platform. The new market adds energy price exposure to an application that combines asset derivatives, prediction markets, and a spot order-book exchange, with trading verification and settlement built around Midnight.

Oil Joins Ascend’s Perpetual Markets

The oil market allows traders to take positions on price movements without purchasing the underlying commodity. Perpetual contracts support long and short positions and have no fixed expiration date. Positions remain open until traders close them or insufficient margin triggers liquidation.

Leverage increases exposure relative to the collateral committed, amplifying both gains and losses. Ascend sets limits by market. Its published crypto perpetuals guide lists maximum leverage of 50x for bitcoin and 10x for ADA, while the oil announcement does not specify the new contract’s limit.

These asset contracts sit alongside Ascend’s event-based markets, where positions track changes in the probability of an outcome.

Midnight’s August network update described Ascend’s verifiable events perpetuals exchange and spot DEX, including settlement through zero-knowledge proofs. The infrastructure supports verification of trading operations while protecting underlying position data.

Cardano Stakers Can Claim Trading Rewards

Ascend announced that approximately $2,000 in initial rewards had become available for stakers to claim. According to the team, rewards come from trading activity, are denominated in dollar value, and can be claimed in supported stablecoins across multiple ecosystems.

The $ASCEND token is a Cardano native asset. Participants register for staking through a signed transaction while retaining their tokens in their Cardano wallet. The system requires no token lockup, and recorded stakes adjust when wallet holdings fall below the registered amount.

Ascend’s fee schedule sets a base taker rate of 0.040% for orders that consume existing liquidity. Maker orders, which add liquidity, pay no trading fee. Staking discounts reduce the taker rate to as low as 0.024%.

The documentation allocates 100% of taker fee revenue to $ASCEND stakers, linking rewards to fees collected through the platform. Funding payments between long and short positions remain separate from that revenue.

Memepad Plans Token Launches on Midnight

Alongside oil trading, Ascend introduced Memepad as an upcoming meme token launchpad on Midnight. The team has not announced a release date.

Memepad would add token creation and launch functionality to Ascend’s existing trading products. The announced scope extends the application to creators seeking to issue assets on Midnight, alongside users who access its derivatives and spot markets.