Overview
- Kraken launched CFTC‑regulated perpetual futures on Monday, June 15, 2026, listing contracts for major tokens through Bitnomial and making them available to eligible U.S. clients on Kraken Pro.
- The contracts are cleared and listed via Bitnomial, an exchange and clearinghouse acquired earlier this year by Kraken’s parent Payward, which lets traders use one account for spot, margin, CME futures and perpetuals.
- At launch Kraken offered perps for BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK, DOGE, LTC and AVAX with plans to add more contracts and collateral options over time.
- Perpetuals trade continuously without expiry and use periodic funding payments to track spot prices, a design that drove roughly $60–62 trillion in global perp volume in 2025 and that raises questions about leverage, liquidations, clearing capacity and real‑time supervision.
- The rollout follows narrow, case‑by‑case CFTC approvals earlier this month that opened a path for onshore perps but left key policy and operational issues unresolved, so regulators and exchanges will need to set limits on who can trade, how positions are cleared, and how 24/7 supervision will work.