Derivatives Exchanges: A Primer on Perpetual Futures — Limited Risk to the Traditional Futures Structure for Institutional Traders, but Leveraged Spot Can Work for Retail

Research evidence excerpt

Derivatives Exchanges: A Primer on Perpetual Futures — Limited Risk to the Traditional Futures Structure for Institutional Traders, but Leveraged Spot Can Work for Retail

unwarranted and see the

valuation of ICE as particularly compelling.

• Perpetual futures. Perpetual futures were conceptualized by Robert Shiller in

1992 and later launched by ICBIT and BITMEX two decades later. More

recently, they have been popularized by cryptocurrency derivatives trading

outside of the U.S. We view perps as essentially a levered product on an

underlying asset’s spot price. They have no expiration, are traded 24/7, and can,

at times, allow higher levels of leverage relative to traditional futures. There are

a variety of perps, with on-chain and off-chain having some key differences in

structure that we will discuss further in this research. Despite perps being

branded as futures, the cash flow profile is more consistent with a swap, with

counterparties exchanging cash flows based on the movement of the

underlying assets prices. The CFTC approved the first perpetual products in the

U.S, based on the price of Bitcoin (BTC), on May 29 for trading at Kalshi and

Coinbase.

• Hyperliquid in focus.We highlight Hyperliquid as the largest and fastest

growing on-chain perpetual futures venue. It processes $5-10bn in daily perps

notional volume, with ~$9bn of perps open interest. Hyperliquid’s offering of Contents

on-chain perps differs meaningfully from Kalshi’s currently approved perps

Mechanics of a Perpetual Future 3

(off-chain), particularly when it comes to clearing. We also note that Binance, Overview of Hyperliquid 13

the largest centralized exchange global for cryptocurrency derivatives, trades Perpetual Futures Coming to the US — CFTC in

off-chain.