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looking on coingecko, I see that gate.io has hive listed as a perpetual contract, with a volume of $26. That's nothing.

No other futures in sight. So again, not too sure what you are talking about. If someone talked to you about futures could you tell me who, I'm interested.

Margin trading is not futures. Margin gives the ability to borrow but then you buy on spot.

Ah, you are correct. It's a 5x margin market, not a futures market.

Mechanics are the same for our purposes though.