Spot vs derivatives
If you remember one distinction from this entire path, make it this one. Almost every prohibited trading product sits on one side of it.
What spot means
You pay, you receive the asset, and it is yours. You can withdraw it, hold it for ten years, or send it to someone else. Both sides of the exchange happen now.
That immediacy matters. A valid sale needs at least one side delivered at the time of contract, and for exchanges of money for money, both sides.
What a derivative is
A contract whose value is derived from an asset you never actually receive. You are not buying Bitcoin, you are buying exposure to its price.
Futures, perpetuals, options and contracts for difference all work this way. You will never hold the thing.
Why they fail
Four problems, and each one would be enough on its own.
No ownership. You are selling or buying what you do not have.
Both sides deferred. Nothing is delivered when the contract is struck.
A financing cost. Funding rates and overnight charges are riba.
Zero sum. Your profit is somebody's loss, with nothing produced between you.
What about leverage on spot?
Still borrowed money, still carrying a cost. Spot with three times leverage is not spot, it is a margin loan with a spot position attached, and the lender decides when you are closed out.
What this leaves you
Buy assets you own. Hold them. Sell them. Take profit by selling, and express a bearish view by sitting in cash.
That is a smaller toolkit than a leveraged trader has, and it is the whole of the permissible one.
If you already hold positions
Close them, rather than waiting for a better exit. Any gain that came from the prohibited part is not yours to keep, so give that portion away without counting it as sadaqah and without expecting reward for it.
Then turn the permission off in your account settings, because leaving it enabled is leaving the door open on a night you are tired and down money.
In one line: if you never take ownership, or you borrowed to get in, you are not in a spot trade and the ruling follows from that.
Spot ownership of a screened asset is permissible. Futures, perpetuals, options and margin are not, and swap-free versions remove only one of their four problems.
Spot-only risk rules