Overview
- Kraken went live with perpetual futures on Kraken Pro on June 15, listing nine crypto assets through Bitnomial and clearing trades via NinjaTrader Clearing for eligible U.S. professional and institutional clients.
- Perpetuals are no‑expiry futures that use periodic funding payments to keep contract prices close to spot and Kraken’s contracts settle funding every eight hours at fixed times.
- Kraken integrated perps into a single futures wallet so traders can use the same collateral across spot, margin, CME futures, and the new perpetuals without moving funds between venues.
- The launches rest on case‑by‑case CFTC approvals and no‑action guidance rather than permanent rules, and regulators have set conservative guardrails such as lower leverage limits and disclosure/exit requirements that will be tested when temporary relief expires at the end of June.
- The broader question for markets is whether U.S. venues can pull meaningful liquidity from entrenched offshore exchanges that handled most of the roughly $60 trillion to $90 trillion in perpetuals volume in 2025, with implications for clearing capacity, funding‑rate behavior, and who gains market share.