Kraken Launches Crypto Perpetual Futures Trading in the United States, Expanding Compliance-driven Derivatives Offering

BlockBeats News, June 15th, the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken announced that it will launch cryptocurrency perpetual futures trading services on its professional trading platform Kraken Pro for U.S. users, marking its further expansion in the U.S. derivatives market.

Perpetual futures are a type of derivative without an expiration date, using a funding rate mechanism to keep the price anchored to the spot market, widely used for leveraged trading of assets such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

This launch is built on Kraken's acquisition in May of this year of Bitnomial, a CFTC-regulated exchange, clearinghouse, and broker. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) recently approved Kalshi to launch Bitcoin perpetual futures and allowed Coinbase to introduce "quasi-perpetual" long-term futures products.

Regulators, under the current U.S. administration, are accelerating efforts to promote the "domestication" of cryptocurrency derivatives to attract trading activity back from overseas platforms to regulated markets. Market data shows that after the launch of Bitcoin perpetual futures by Kalshi, trading volume has exceeded $1 billion, demonstrating a rapid growth in demand for such products from both institutions and retail traders.