Ex-FTX US Chief Launches Perpetual Futures for Trad-Fi
Brett Harrison, former president of FTX US, has founded Architect Financial Technologies after securing regulatory approval in Bermuda. The firm plans to offer crypto-style perpetual futures on traditional assets such as stocks, indices, commodities, foreign currencies and interest rates. Perpetual futures are leveraged, no-expiry contracts that use a funding-rate mechanism to track spot prices. This instrument powered crypto trading volumes from $35 billion in 2018 to $6.4 trillion in 2025. While FTX US never listed perps, FTX Global and BitMEX once offered up to 100× leverage before collapsing in November 2022 amid a liquidity crisis. Perpetual futures remain high-risk derivatives under close scrutiny: the US CFTC issued warnings in 2023 over weak safeguards and experts warn that excessive margin can trigger heavy liquidations. Despite risks, Binance, OKX, Bybit and Bitget continue to dominate the perpetual futures market. Architect’s move bridges crypto derivatives and traditional finance, creating fresh opportunities—and elevated risks—for traders.
Neutral
The launch of crypto-style perpetual futures on traditional assets by Architect Financial Technologies broadens the derivatives market and may attract new institutional interest. However, since these contracts do not involve trading specific cryptocurrencies, their introduction is unlikely to exert significant upward or downward pressure on any individual coin. In the short term, it may boost trading volumes in the broader derivatives sector without triggering direct price volatility. Over the long term, it could support further integration between crypto and traditional finance, but its effect on spot crypto prices remains limited, resulting in a neutral impact.