Short Position

Going short means selling an asset you don't own, typically via derivatives like futures or perpetual swaps. If the price falls, you buy the exposure back cheaper and keep the difference:

PnL = (entry price − exit price) × quantity

Short 1 BTC at $64,000, buy it back at $60,000, and you make $4,000 before fees and funding.

Risk profile

Shorts carry one structural risk that spot longs don't: price can rise without limit, so the theoretical loss on a naked short is unbounded. In practice an exchange will liquidate a levered short long before infinity, and a disciplined strategy caps the damage with a stop-loss anyway.

Shorts aren't only directional bets

A short leg can also hedge. In a cash-and-carry trade, a futures short is paired with an equal spot long. The combined position doesn't care which way price goes; it earns the basis instead.

On AlphaProve

Because the tradable universe is USDT-settled perpetual futures, a short held across a funding window pays or receives funding, and the engine folds those payments into net PnL alongside fees rather than reporting a gross figure. The tearsheet then splits results into long and short direction stats, so you can see whether your edge actually lives on the short side or whether the longs are carrying the whole strategy.