Trump’s crypto push opens perps race to Singapore Exchange

By Suvashree Ghosh

(Bloomberg) — Singapore Exchange Ltd is preparing to offer its cryptocurrency perpetual futures to US institutions, making it the first major traditional exchange to bring one of crypto's favorite trades into the mainstream.

The exchange filed with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission last month to offer the contracts to US investors. As a registered overseas exchange, it can offer the products to US institutions if it receives no objection within 10 days. The move gives SGX access to a deeper pool of hedge funds, asset managers and proprietary trading firms after the exchange launched Bitcoin and Ether perpetual futures last November.

Perpetual futures, known as perps, have become a fixture of crypto markets, letting traders make leveraged bets without the expiry dates attached to conventional futures. Traditional exchanges are now pursuing their own versions as regulators become more receptive, opening a new front in the competition for a derivatives market that generates hundreds of billions of dollars in trading each month.

However, there's a catch: bringing perps into traditional finance means changing some of what made them distinctly crypto products. SGX's contracts trade 22.5 hours a day, five days a week, with members required to post 35 per cent margin and use fiat collateral. The exchange also does not use the automatic deleveraging mechanisms found on some crypto platforms.