Crypto exchanges built perpetual futures for digital assets. Now they are using them to offer 24/7 exposure to stocks, commodities and indexes.
Both retail and institutional traders worry about the funding rate.
CME CEO Terry Duffy said a court battle over whether perpetual futures are swaps or futures could eventually affect how the IRS taxes the contracts. Independent legal experts say the issue remains unresolved.
Perpetual futures drive much of the price discovery for bitcoin and ether. When traders pointed the same machinery at a private company, they priced the biggest IPO in history more accurately than Wall Street, and then watched the stock walk away from them.
Rather than competing directly with faster chains, some builders argue Ethereum's strength lies in supporting the layer-2 networks where trading is taking place.
"We were a scrappy startup," Delo said of BitMEX back in 2016, when it launched the first perpetual future. "We thought, ‘Just get it out there. If it was any good, the market would show us.’"
As perpetuals enter regulated markets, critics warn they import systemic risk. But the risk comes from venue design — leverage limits, margin rules, index construction, and default handling — not the contract itself, argues Chris Tyrer, President of Bullish Exchange.
DRW CEO Don Wilson says perpetual futures aren't inherently risky crypto gambling tools, and it’s time traditional markets and regulators start embracing them.
Hyperliquid is capitalizing on the volume and depth of its order book by giving firms the option to compose with the platform’s shared liquidity, rather than fragmenting it.
Weeks ago, the U.S. CFTC opened the gates for crypto perps with its first listing approval, but major derivatives player CME is fighting back against what it sees as a diversion from the law.
Regulated perpetual futures are officially landing in the U.S., but while agile trading firms and crypto exchanges race to capture massive retail demand, traditional Wall Street banks are holding back until liquidity, rules, and infrastructure mature.
Perps, which launched on BitMEX in 2015, have become one of the most traded financial products in the world.