Much of the activity has taken place on offshore exchanges, including fast-growing platforms such as Hyperliquid, which have attracted professional traders seeking deep liquidity and continuous access to leveraged markets. Prediction market Kalshi, which introduced perps to its platform earlier this month, saw over $1 billion in trading volume in just one week.
The debut comes weeks after the CFTC signaled that regulated platforms could offer perpetual futures. In May, the agency approved Kalshi’s bitcoin perpetual contracts and issued guidance that also cleared a path for Coinbase ( COIN ) to connect U.S. clients to global options and perpetual markets.
Kraken has been building towards the introduction through a series of derivatives-focused acquisitions and product releases. The company acquired NinjaTrader in May 2025 and Bitnomial a year later to gain regulated futures infrastructure. It recently added CME-listed crypto futures and margin trading for US clients.
Kraken’s head of derivatives, John Palmer, told CoinDesk last week that adoption may mirror the trajectory of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), where sophisticated traders step in first before investment advisers and asset managers follow after completing internal reviews.
At launch, Kraken’s perpetual futures cover major cryptocurrencies including BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK, DOGE, LTC and AVAX. The company said it plans to expand the range of contracts and collateral over time.
