[SINGAPORE] Singapore Exchange plans to list Bitcoin perpetual futures as traditional exchanges push deeper into crypto derivative markets.
Singapore’s largest exchange group intends to launch the contracts in the second half of 2025, a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. The company will strictly target institutional clients and professional investors, with retail customers barred from trading the instruments.
The move is the latest sign that established exchange operators are branching out into Bitcoin derivatives, as US President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto agenda boosts demand for digital assets exposure. Bloomberg News reported on Mar 4 that Japan’s Osaka Dojima Exchange, which traces its roots to the 18th century, is planning to seek approval to list Bitcoin futures.
SGX hopes to act as a bridge between regulated financial markets and the freewheeling world of cryptocurrency trading. The firm thinks its offering will “significantly expand institutional market access,” the spokesperson said.
The planned products are still awaiting approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Perpetual futures – which have no expiry date – are a way for traders to bet on price changes in an underlying asset without needing to own the asset itself. SGX is not the only exchange looking to launch the contracts in Singapore: in January 2024, Hoboken, New Jersey-based EDX Markets, a digital-asset firm backed by Citadel Securities, revealed plans to offer the instruments in the city-state.
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Perpetual contracts are a staple of offshore cryptocurrency venues like Binance Holdings and OKX. They were also a mainstay of FTX Co-Founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed crypto empire.
Doing business with crypto exchanges creates credit risk for counterparties. The short history of crypto trading is littered with episodes of stolen assets and failed exchanges. The SGX spokesperson said its Aa2 rating from Moody’s will offer a trusted alternative for trading crypto futures.
The idea of a perpetually rolling future is an approach already common in the commodity markets. Japan Exchange Group, for example, offers investors “rolling-spot” gold futures, giving them exposure to the current gold price without having to worry about gold bars arriving on their doorstep.
The contracts were first developed by the crypto exchange BitMEX in 2016, Bloomberg News reported previously. The contracts use a mechanism similar to some swap contracts: if a position is in the money, one party must pay the other, a situation that reverses if the contract falls out of the money.
Conventional futures in Bitcoin and Ether that expire at a particular date are already widely offered by US exchanges. In October 2024, Chicago-based exchange and clearing house Bitnomial said it wants to launch perpetual futures in the US market using a new technology platform called Botanical. BLOOMBERG
