# Commodities ## Commodities Commodity perpetuals provide levered exposure to underlying commodities. CASH commodity markets are linear, USDT-margined, and USDT-settled. USDT/USD conversion is applied to oracle prices This page describes how commodity markets define trading sessions and how pricing behaves in Regular Hours versus Off Hours. ### Trading sessions for commodities CASH defines "Regular Hours" and "Off Hours" for commodities based on the availability of a 23/5 external price feed. #### Regular Hours (external session) Regular Hours are: * Sunday 18:00 ET to Friday 17:00 ET * With a daily maintenance break from 17:00 ET to 18:00 ET During Regular Hours, CASH uses external pricing inputs for the oracle. #### Off Hours (internal session) Off Hours are: * The daily maintenance break from 17:00 ET to 18:00 ET (Monday to Thursday) * The weekend closure from Friday 17:00 ET to Sunday 18:00 ET During Off Hours, CASH uses internal, smoothed pricing inputs for the oracle. Holiday schedules and special closures may apply. ### External Oracle for Commodities | Commodity | Reference Price | Source | | --------- | --------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | | Gold | Spot | | | Silver | Spot | | | WTI | Dated Futures | CLK6 | ### Rolling futures/data source ## Rolling futures/data source For commodities where the external oracle relies on dated futures (e.g. WTI), the reference contract must be periodically "rolled" from the expiring contract to the next one. This section explains how and when that happens. ### Why do rolls happen? Futures contracts have expiry dates — they don't last forever. CASH perpetuals, on the other hand, never expire. So roughly once a month, CASH needs to switch which futures contract it uses as the price reference. This switch is called a **roll**. ### Why commodity rolls use a smooth transition When switching from one futures contract to the next, there is always some price difference between the two. For **equity index futures**, this gap is very small — it's driven almost entirely by interest rates and dividends, which are predictable and change slowly. That means a simple, instant switch from one contract to the next causes only a negligible price impact on the oracle. (CASH also adjusts for this gap using a cost-of-carry discount — see [US Equity Indices](https://docs.dreamcash.xyz/markets/us-equity-indices) for details.) **Commodity futures are different.** The price gap between two consecutive oil contracts can be much larger and less predictable. This gap is driven by factors like storage costs, supply and demand imbalances, seasonal patterns, and market sentiment about future supply. For example, May WTI crude might trade at $62 while June trades at $64 — a $2 difference. If the oracle switched instantly from one contract to the other, that $2 gap would appear as a sudden, artificial price move in the CASH market, even though nothing changed in the real world. To avoid this, CASH uses a **gradual blended roll** for commodities — smoothly shifting the oracle's reference from the old contract to the new one over the course of a full trading session. This spreads the contract gap across 23 hours rather than concentrating it in a single moment, preventing unnecessary liquidations or funding rate spikes. ### How the roll works Rather than switching instantly from one contract to the next (which could cause a sudden jump in the oracle price), CASH transitions **smoothly** over the course of one full trading session (23 hours). During the roll window, the oracle price is a **blend** of the outgoing (front-month) contract and the incoming (next-month) contract. The blend shifts gradually — starting at 100% front-month and ending at 100% next-month — so the transition is seamless. **Roll window:** The roll begins at **6:00 PM ET** on the roll start date and completes at **5:00 PM ET** the following day (one full Regular Hours session). **What happens during the roll:** | Time | Front-month weight | Next-month weight | | -------------------------- | ------------------ | ----------------- | | 6:00 PM ET (roll start) | 100% | 0% | | 11:30 PM ET | \~76% | \~24% | | 5:00 AM ET | \~52% | \~48% | | 11:00 AM ET | \~22% | \~78% | | 5:00 PM ET (roll complete) | 0% | 100% | At any point during the roll, the oracle price is calculated as: > **Oracle Price = (w × Front-month Price) + ((1 − w) × Next-month Price)** Where **w** starts at 1 and decreases linearly to 0 over the 23-hour window. ### Roll schedule for WTI WTI futures contracts expire monthly, so the oracle reference is rolled approximately once per month. The roll is scheduled to begin roughly one week before the expiring contract's last trading day. Exact roll dates are announced ahead of time. | Outgoing contract | Incoming contract | Roll start (ET) | Roll complete (ET) | | ----------------- | ----------------- | ---------------- | ------------------ | | CLK6 (May) | CLM6 (Jun) | 2026-04-13 18:00 | 2026-04-14 17:00 | | CLM6 (Jun) | CLN6 (Jul) | TBA (mid-May) | TBA | | CLN6 (Jul) | CLQ6 (Aug) | TBA (mid-Jun) | TBA | | CLQ6 (Aug) | CLU6 (Sep) | TBA (mid-Jul) | TBA | | CLU6 (Sep) | CLV6 (Oct) | TBA (mid-Aug) | TBA | | CLV6 (Oct) | CLX6 (Nov) | TBA (mid-Sep) | TBA | | CLX6 (Nov) | CLZ6 (Dec) | TBA (mid-Oct) | TBA | | CLZ6 (Dec) | CLF7 (Jan) | TBA (mid-Nov) | TBA | > **Note:** Roll dates will be confirmed and communicated ahead of time. In general, the roll will take place approximately 5–8 business days before the outgoing contract's last trading day. ### Key points * **No disruption to trading.** You can trade normally during a roll — no action is required on your part. * **Smooth transition.** The gradual blend prevents any sudden price jumps that a hard switch would cause. * **Monthly cadence.** Unlike equity index futures (which roll quarterly), WTI futures roll roughly once a month because the underlying contracts expire monthly.