Fee currency
The fee currency is the asset in which a trading fee is charged — typically the quote or settlement currency of the market, unless a token-discount program redirects fees to the exchange's own token.
Defaults follow the market's structure. On USDT-margined futures, fees are charged in USDT; on coin-margined contracts, in the underlying coin; on spot, usually in the asset you receive from the trade. The practical effect is that fees quietly consume the asset you are accumulating or posting as margin.
Token programs add an alternative: opt in, hold the exchange token, and fees deduct from that balance at a discount instead. The discount is real but converts your fee bill into continuous exposure to the token — evaluated properly, that trade-off belongs to the token-fee-discount entry.
For accounting and rebates, fee currency mostly matters for bookkeeping cleanliness. Fees charged in USDT make cost tracking trivial and align exactly with a payback settled in USDT: costs and returns in the same unit, comparable at a glance in your ledger. Fees paid in volatile assets need marking to market before any cost comparison means anything.
How futures fees are charged →