US speeds up rollout of perpetual futures…could it reshape the crypto derivatives landscape?

US CFTC: "We will introduce perpetual futures"

Announcement likely next month

Aiming to draw hundreds of billions of dollars in liquidity into the US

US institutions may also enter in force

"We need to bring back to the United States the liquidity that has gone overseas."

The comment was made by Michael Selick, chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), during the Milken Institute’s “Future of Finance 2026” conference earlier this month.

Selick said, “Within roughly the next month, we are putting in place the institutional groundwork to introduce true ‘perpetual futures (Perpetual Futures)’ in the United States,” adding, “We will announce the details soon.”

The industry assessed this as “cutting to the core of the Trump administration’s crypto policy.” President Trump has previously emphasized that the US should become the “global crypto capital” and pull back domestic liquidity that has flowed abroad.

Perpetual futures are a derivatives product that exists only in the crypto market. Unlike traditional finance (TradFi) futures contracts, they remove the maturity structure and, via funding payments, track underlying assets such as bitcoin. In crypto markets, perpetual futures account for more than 70% of total trading volume.

Could the global crypto market landscape shift?

The main reason Selick is stressing the introduction of perpetual futures is, above all, to channel massive liquidity into US markets.

According to CoinMarketCap, as of the 17th, crypto perpetual futures trading volume stands at about $1.16 trillion (about KRW 1,727 trillion). Open interest (OI), which indicates the size of market positions, totals about $441 billion (about KRW 656 trillion). If the US allows perpetual futures, it becomes more likely to absorb part of the hundreds of billions of dollars in liquidity formed in global markets.

This also appears to reflect concerns that US crypto exchanges have been unable to gain traction in the derivatives market. According to on-chain analytics firm CoinGlass, among centralized exchanges (CEXs), last year’s top five by crypto-derivatives market share were Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget and Gate, together accounting for about 70% of the overall market.

By contrast, Coinbase, the largest US crypto exchange, ranks only eighth by share. Other US crypto exchanges Crypto.com and Kraken are ranked 12th and 17th, respectively. CoinGlass noted that “top exchanges in (derivatives share) have formed a virtuous cycle on the back of liquidity advantages,” adding that “exchanges without such advantages have no choice but to remain continuously exposed to pressure from share erosion.”

In addition, if enactment of the “Crypto Market Structure Act (Clarity Act),” currently pending in the US Senate, dovetails with the introduction of perpetual futures, there are forecasts that large-scale institutional money could flow into US exchanges.

Jinsol Bok, lead at Populous Research, said, “As the crypto industry grows, demand from US institutions for perpetual futures trading is also increasing,” adding, “If US institutions enter the (perpetual futures) market in earnest, the competitive landscape of the exchange industry could change.”

Lee Jun-hyung, Bloomingbit reporter gilson@bloomingbit.io