I have 2 questions about perpetual trading:
1/ If I don't use leverage (i.e. x1) do I risk being liquidated if my trade doesn't go in the right direction?
Yes even without leverage you still risk getting liquidated just that without it, the risk is minimal. The liquidation can be possible both when using stop loss or not using just that the latter Also minimizes the risk.
Example let say you have $100 as your future trading capital, then you place a trade with $50 as the position without leverage the trade will need to be at -100% for you to be liquidated. So if there is no stop loss before that -50% you risk liquidation and even if there is and it’s higher than the amount on your wallet say (-105%) is your stop loss then you will get liquidated before stop loss will even trigger.
2/ If I don't use leverage (i.e. x1) can I keep a BTC contract, how can I do this in the Spot market?
If I get your question without leverage will you be able to borrow to trade I.e spot trading, i will say no, leverage is actually the contract the broker or exchange gives to you and without it you are not getting the contract. In fact this one of the differences between future trading/perpetual and spot trading.
Well that means you only using spot if you arent using leverage at all. Not sure if theres a future trading that only uses 1x maybe still since you arr using that medium at all. You can long and short order while on spot only natural trading.
Yes there is exchanges that allows not using leverage (x1) for future trading, if I can remember Bybit exchange actually allows that.