Druckenmiller Backs the Push to Bring 24/7 Perpetual Futures Onshore
Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, said on Thursday it will work with tradeXYZ to bring perpetual futures into a US-regulated market. These are leveraged contracts that never expire, trade around the clock, and let traders take large positions with a small amount of cash. They will be tied to stocks, digital assets and other markets. Stanley Druckenmiller posted that he is "excited to be an investor" in tradeXYZ, which is partnered with the offshore exchange Hyperliquid.
Per the Financial Times, George Steer and Amelia Pollard report that the CFTC allowed a handful of companies, including Kalshi, to offer perpetuals for the first time this year. The decision split the industry. CME Group sued, arguing the approval breaks existing rules. Supporters say perpetuals give traders flexibility, since a funding mechanism keeps the contract tied to the spot price and positions can be opened or closed at any time. Consumer group Better Markets called them the most dangerous product in crypto, warning they amplify risk by letting retail investors control positions far larger than the money they put in.
Demand is clearly there. Trading on Hyperliquid surged when the Iran war began, as traders used it to bet on energy prices over weekends when traditional futures markets were closed. That is the pattern across this year's market structure stories. The London Stock Exchange licensed round-the-clock tokenized trading from Kraken. Nasdaq bought into Kraken's parent. Kalshi began lending against bitcoin to fund leveraged futures. Now the owner of the NYSE is bringing a product that grew up on an unregulated offshore exchange into the US system. Incumbents are adopting the features that drew traders elsewhere, starting with continuous trading.
The leverage is the part to weigh. Perpetuals on stocks would let US retail investors take large, leveraged positions on equities at any hour, through a regulated venue. The CFTC's new voluntary regime for digital asset exchanges, proposed this month, would also permit retail leverage. Bringing these products onshore adds oversight and customer protections that offshore venues lack. It also makes leveraged trading easier to reach for people who would not have gone looking for it.
Druckenmiller's position is worth noting alongside the investment. He has said privately there is a good chance markets are in an earnings bubble driven by the AI buildout, and that the build-out is late enough that investors should start to worry. Backing a product designed for fast, leveraged trading while warning about stretched markets is consistent for a macro trader. It is less obviously suited to the retail investors these products will reach.
What to watch is the outcome of CME's lawsuit and the details of how ICE and tradeXYZ structure margin and position limits. A regulated perpetuals market could be safer than the offshore alternative. Whether it is depends on how much leverage it allows and who it lets use it.