The VIX is a derivative designed to reflect the expected range of movement in the S&P 500 index over the next year at a 68% confidence level (i.e., one standard deviation). It's based on a cumulative sample of several S&P 500 futures markets. The VIX futures have an extremely steep term structure: longer-dated futures are trading a lot higher than shorter-dated futures. (I'm conflating a lot of stuff here - term structure, skew effects, cryptoinformator com, curve rolldown, etc., but we're ELI5-ing here.) So let's imagine you buy the March VIX futures.