Largely speculative financial instruments that derive their value from an underlying asset or basket of assets.
As the name suggests, derivatives are financial instruments that derive their value from underlying assets, such as stocks, commodities, cryptocurrencies and indexes.
Derivatives are primarily used to manage risk and speculate on future market movements.
The most common types of derivatives are futures, options, and swaps. In cryptocurrency markets, a new type of derivative, the perpetual swaps, are also quite popular.