contracts

The latest research report from the Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC) states that perpetual contracts expand hedging options and improve price discovery, with no evidence found of statistically significant harm to the benchmark futures market. The report argues that perpetual contracts are complementary to traditional futures with expiration dates, rather than zero-sum substitutes.The study utilizes the natural experiment of traditional markets being closed on weekends while perpetual markets continue trading, comparing 205 weekends of Bitcoin trading and 19 weekends of on-chain crude oil perpetual (xyz:CL) samples. The report states that expiring futures require calendar-based forced rollovers, with the cost of rolling a $10 million exposure on the Monday of April 2026 being about $950,000, while on Friday it is about $110,000; perpetual positions do not have this forced cost. The median transaction price for on-chain crude oil perpetual during non-trading hours is about $1,300, approximately one percent of the benchmark WTI median transaction price.HPC also provides an example where the crude oil weekend repricing on the week of March 6, 2026, was 15.8%, with the benchmark market completely closed; if hedged through on-chain crude oil perpetual, a $10 million position loss could be reduced from about $1.58 million to approximately $62,000 (after accounting for all costs).

The head of Galaxy Research posted on platform X stating that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed the Regulation Crypto Assets, abbreviated as Reg Crypto. This proposal aims to establish a legal pathway for the issuance of certain tokens to the U.S. public and to set up a mechanism for terminating investment contracts. The scope is limited to crypto assets that are not themselves securities but have been issued or sold as part of an investment contract; tokenized stocks, bonds, and arrangements that bundle tokens with equity or other securities are not included in the framework.The proposal sets four stages: financing, disclosure, construction, and exit. A one-time startup exemption allows issuers to raise up to $5 million over a maximum of four years; a higher exemption limit set by Regulation A allows for raising $20 million or $75 million within 12 months.Related financing must undergo qualification review by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and continuous disclosure, with the investment cap for unaccredited investors being the greater of 10% of their annual income or net worth. Issuers must also disclose the token supply and release plan, minting and burning mechanisms, governance and smart contract permissions, source code, as well as project construction commitments and progress.When the issuer completes or permanently ceases relevant construction obligations, makes no new construction commitments, and submits a transition report, the related investment contracts will be deemed terminated, and the crypto assets will no longer be subject to securities laws under that investment contract. Issuers that do not use the above financing exemptions can also utilize this safe harbor. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission estimates that approximately 475 issuers will use the investment contract safe harbor each year, with about 130 issuers utilizing the two new exemptions. Qualified issuances may not be considered restricted securities and can be resold immediately without contractual restrictions.The proposal will also exclude initial offerings and certain secondary transactions within its scope from state registration and qualification requirements, but it does not involve exchanges, brokers, dealers, custodians, nor is it an independent innovation exemption for tokenized securities and on-chain transactions. The comment period is 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins and Commissioners Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda have all issued supportive statements.

According to the latest report from DefiLlama, Gate's trading activity remains at the forefront of the industry, with a total trading volume of approximately $9.5 billion in spot and derivatives over the past 24 hours, ranking third globally and exceeding some mainstream trading platforms by about 40%. DefiLlama pointed out that Gate's trading structure is clearly biased towards derivatives, and the continuously growing scale of related trading has become an important support for its market competitiveness, creating a distinct business advantage among centralized exchanges.In addition to ranking third globally in trading volume, Gate's open interest also ranks among the top three worldwide, currently reaching $12.48 billion, further reflecting the scale of its derivatives business and market participation. DefiLlama noted that compared to its reserve size, Gate demonstrates a more outstanding trading performance, supporting a large derivatives trading volume with a relatively streamlined asset scale. The simultaneous entry of trading volume and open interest into the industry's top three core indicators reflects Gate's leading performance in capital capacity, user participation, and overall market competitiveness.

Bitget's latest data shows that as of August 20, the cumulative number of trades for the platform's TradFi contracts in August has exceeded 150 million, with a single-day peak of 13.64 million trades. As the demand for trading traditional financial assets such as U.S. stocks, foreign exchange, precious metals, and commodities continues to heat up, the trading activity in Bitget's TradFi sector has further increased.

According to the latest data from RootData's tokenized asset dashboard, the top three in terms of OI scale for TradiFi asset contracts are Binance, Hyperliquid, and Bitget.Binance ranks first with an approximate contract OI of $3.74 billion and a market share of 43.4%. Hyperliquid ranks second with an approximate contract OI of $1.89 billion and a market share of 22.0%. Bitget ranks third with an approximate contract OI of $855 million and a market share of 9.9%. The combined market share of the three is about 75.3%.It is reported that the statistics for TradiFi assets only include contracts and tokenized native crypto asset types, excluding data from traditional stock brokers.

On August 19, 2026, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a request for comments to better understand and regulate the compute derivatives market. CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig stated that for the U.S. to win the AI race, a robust compute derivatives market is needed, just as the U.S. market once established standards for commodity trading required by the industrial economy, it will also establish corresponding markets for core commodities of the intelligent economy. This request for comments is the first step in establishing clear rules for the U.S. computing market.The request for comments focuses on the scale, liquidity, and other considerations of the compute spot market, as well as issues related to market regulation and manipulation risks, customer protection, perpetual compute futures, and welcomes opinions on all aspects of the compute market. The comment period is 60 days from the publication in the Federal Register.

Ondo Finance announces the latest progress in its ecosystem. The newly launched Ondo Perps open contracts have surpassed $100 million, continuing to grow steadily since their launch in July, with particularly strong recent performance.According to DefiLlama data, Ondo Perps has entered the top three RWA perpetual contract platforms. Meanwhile, the cumulative number of holders for Ondo Stocks has exceeded 270,000, with less than a year until its launch in September 2025, primarily driven by new participants. All tokens are fully backed by corresponding stocks or ETFs and are held by licensed U.S. custodial brokerages.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has issued a notice seeking public comments on the listing of computing power derivative contracts and related market regulation issues to further understand and improve the regulation of the computing power derivatives market.CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig stated, "Without a robust computing power derivatives market, the U.S. cannot win the AI race." He noted that just as the U.S. market established trading standards for commodities that propelled the industrial economy, it will also establish corresponding rules for computing power commodities to drive the "smart economy." This public comment period is the first step in establishing clear rules for the U.S. computing power market.The notice seeks comments on the scale, liquidity, and other market characteristics of the computing power spot market, while also covering topics such as market regulation, manipulation risks, customer protection, and computing power perpetual futures, and invites market participants to submit comments on other aspects of the computing power market. The comment period will last for 60 days following the publication of the relevant notice in the Federal Register.

Coinbase announced the introduction of perpetual contract trading to the Base App through Hyperliquid, allowing eligible users to trade over 290 perpetual contract markets with a maximum leverage of 50 times, covering Bitcoin, Ethereum, and markets related to stocks and commodities. Coinbase's engineering lead Chintan Turakhia stated that perpetual contracts currently account for about 75% of the total trading volume in the crypto market and are the feature that high-frequency users of the Base App most want to see added.Related trades will be executed within the Base App, but Hyperliquid will be responsible for the actual execution, allowing users to stay within their existing wallets. Coinbase stated that the maximum leverage ratio available for different assets varies, and positions may be liquidated when losses exceed a certain threshold. This product is currently not available to jurisdictions such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other areas that restrict leveraged crypto derivatives trading. This launch also reflects a shift in the product focus of the Base App from previously emphasizing social and creator features to trading, payments, and AI Agents. Base founder Jesse Pollak previously acknowledged that social and creator tokens did not bring the expected user growth, while prediction markets, perpetual contracts, and stablecoins have become stronger drivers of adoption.

According to ChainCatcher information and the official announcement, Bitget's stock perpetual contracts have been launched for UNITREE (Yushu Technology). The contract is settled in USDT, supports up to 20 times leverage, and allows trading 24/7. So far, Bitget supports a total of 277 stock perpetual contract underlying assets.

According to SK Hynix's announcement on August 19, SK Hynix has decided to repurchase 24.07 million shares of common stock through the open market, with an expected repurchase amount of approximately 40.0043 trillion Korean won (about 28.57 billion USD). SK Hynix stated that this repurchase aims to enhance shareholder value by canceling treasury shares.It is reported that Gate has earlier launched perpetual contracts for SKHYNIX stock and trading for SK Hynix (000660) on the Korean stock market.

Coinbase announced the launch of the US500 perpetual contract product, allowing users to go long or short on the overall performance of the 500 largest companies by market capitalization in the United States through a single contract. This product is designed to provide traders with a convenient tool for exposure to U.S. stock index risk without the need to trade individual component stocks separately.The US500 perpetual contract supports leveraged trading, enabling users to express their bullish or bearish views on the overall performance of large U.S. companies in a more efficient manner. Coinbase continues to expand its product line of derivatives and traditional financial assets to meet the diverse trading needs of institutional and retail users.

According to official news, the Gate stock derivatives section will launch on August 18 at 14:00 (UTC+8) with perpetual contract trading for SHENHUA (China Shenhua 601088.SH), YANGTZE (Yangtze Power 600900.SH), HYGON (Haiguang Information 688041.SH), MIDEA (Midea Group 000333.SZ), BEIGENE (BeiGene 688235.SH), MOUTAI (Kweichow Moutai 600519.SH), HENGRUI (Hengrui Medicine 600276.SH), BIWIN (Biwin Storage 688525.SH), DEMINGLI (Demingli 001309.SZ), and TAIJI (Taiji Industry 600667.SH) (settled in USDT), supporting 1-20x leverage.In addition, Gate will hold the 15th phase of the new coin airdrop event for the stock derivatives section from August 18 at 16:00 to August 27 at 16:00 (UTC+8). New users who complete their first contract trade will receive 5 USDT; daily trading volume of the participating coins can accumulate up to 35 USDT; trading the participating coins will share a prize pool of 30,000 USDT. The total prize pool for the event is 50,000 USDT, with a maximum of 240 USDT that can be claimed by a single person.

According to the official announcement, to meet the diverse investment needs of users, Bitget has launched perpetual contracts for 3 stocks and ETFs: GDX (Gold Mining ETF), NET (Cloudflare), and LYTE (Photonics and Optical ETF).The above contracts are all settled in USDT, supporting up to 20 times leverage and 24/7 trading. As of now, Bitget supports a total of 276 stock perpetual contract underlying assets.

According to the official announcement, Bitget's stock perpetual contracts have been launched for CXMT (Changxin Storage). The contract is settled in USDT, supports up to 20 times leverage, and allows trading 24/7. So far, Bitget supports a total of 273 stock perpetual contract underlying assets.

The Binance futures platform will launch GDXUSDT, NETUSDT, VSTUSDT, SHOPUSDT, and LYTEUSDT USDT-denominated perpetual contracts on August 17 at 21:30, and will launch CXMTUSDT USDT-denominated perpetual contracts on August 18 at 13:00, with a maximum leverage of 20 times.

According to a report by Castle Labs, as of August 12, Hyperliquid's cumulative revenue has reached $1.24 billion, with native perpetual contracts contributing $1.13 billion, accounting for 90.7%; the HIP-3 perpetual contracts contributed $23.7 million.Other sources of revenue include spot trading $45.9 million, spot auctions $20.7 million, HyperEVM Gas $13.5 million, and more.

According to CNBC, sources reveal that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is conducting an internal review of the "mention markets" on prediction platforms. These markets allow traders to predict whether specific words will appear in scenarios such as speeches, company earnings call meetings, or television programs.Sources indicate that the CFTC notified Kalshi about the review a few weeks ago, after which Kalshi removed the mention markets related to sports from the platform. It is still unclear whether this review is only targeting sports-related contracts or if it covers all types of mention markets.

According to the official announcement, Gate has officially launched SOL and XRP event contracts, simultaneously opening multi-cycle rise and fall trading channels. Users can log into the Gate App or the official website and enter the event contract section in the contract area to participate.Event contracts focus on rise and fall prediction trading, requiring no complex parameters such as leverage or margin, making the operational threshold low. The product covers four types of short cycles: 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, and 4 hours, currently supporting four major cryptocurrencies: BTC, ETH, SOL, and XRP. Users only need to predict the rise and fall of the asset during the corresponding period, choose to place a bullish or bearish order, and the system will automatically settle at the end of the cycle. Positions can also be closed early for flexible profit-taking and loss-cutting.