Will Perpetual Futures Define Financial Infrastructure 2.0

HodlX Guest Post  Submit Your Post

For a long time, traders and investors treated ‘perps’ (perpetual futures) as one of the riskiest instruments, characterized by high leverage and constant volatility.

But as trading matured, those same mechanics started to connect among markets, turning perps from a niche derivative into the backbone of crypto liquidity.

Today, they account for roughly 68% of all Bitcoin trading volume in 2025, while spot markets make up less than a third.

Given this dynamic, it’s no surprise that perps no longer follow prices – they set them.

But setting prices isn’t the same as earning the market’s trust.

What’s keeping perps from being recognized as true financial infrastructure instead of just another high-risk trend?

The answer lies in how perps actually work, how they’re integrating into broader market plumbing and what’s still holding them back.

The mechanics that make perps work

A perp is a futures contract without an expiry date. This is what makes it different from traditional futures that settle every month or quarter.

So, instead of closing and reopening contracts every time they expire, traders exchange a small funding rate which keeps the perp’s price close to the spot market.

In simple terms, perps are a way to trade the future value of an asset continuously – and because execution, hedging and even sentiment all start here, this is where the capital flows first.

That’s why perps now define crypto’s real-time price.

It sounds mechanical, but it has changed market behavior. Since positions don’t expire and leverage builds up over time, the funding rate becomes a live signal of market mood.

When that rate spikes, positioning itself – not headlines – is responsible for moving the prices. In this sense, perps have changed the market’s core mechanics long before most realized it.

Still, scale alone doesn’t make a system infrastructure. What defines infrastructure is reliability or the ability to move capital safely across assets and participants without fragmentation.

In fact, perps are already moving toward that standard as exchanges begin connecting collateral, risk and liquidity within unified systems.

From trading tool to market plumbing

Connecting all those pieces together is what allows markets to operate as one coherent, continuous system and what makes perpetual futures start to resemble true infrastructure. The transition is already in motion.

For example, one major exchange merged its dollar-denominated markets into one unified order book, which let previously chaotic liquidity circulate in a single stream.

The same logic now affects other platforms that link collateral and risk management across products, allowing a position in Bitcoin to offset exposure in Ethereum or even in a tokenized treasury.

On the regulated side, another huge exchange has recently introduced perpetual-style contracts under CFTC oversight.

This makes it clear that continuous settlement design is moving into mainstream markets – because the contracts now follow federal rules on margin and reporting.

Taken together, these cases show that shared collateral programs and unified risk engines change how capital moves, and exchanges no longer lock funds in isolated pools but develop toward the most efficient use.

As a result, liquidity deepens, price discovery becomes faster and leverage is visible in real time instead of through end-of-day reports.

Is it limited only to DeFi (decentralized finance)? Not at all.

Traditional institutions such as Franklin Templeton or J.P. Morgan are also expanding tokenized bonds and money-market products that could eventually clear through similar continuous frameworks.

Integration, then, is more than a trading venue feature – it’s the architecture through which traditional and digital markets are beginning to align.

The risks still holding perps back and what to change

We’ve seen how perps evolve into market infrastructure – but every system that connects faster also breaks faster.

So, the same mechanics that make them work seamlessly can turn a local move into a market-wide shock.

When one asset fails or a tokenized bond loses its peg, the pressure spreads through the entire order book, forcing liquidations way beyond where the problem initially started.

A recent liquidation cascade, labeled as ‘crypto’s Black Friday,’ showed this perfectly.

One mispriced collateral module (USDe) triggered billions in forced sales across unrelated pairs within minutes, leading to a chain reaction that drained liquidity and froze market makers.

Then comes the institutional barrier, as 24/7 contracts that pool collateral from all users still leave open questions about asset segregation, loss waterfalls and jurisdictional enforcement.

These are exactly those pieces that keep larger capital on the sidelines. Still, the good news is that all these risks are surmountable – but only via thorough design.

Cross-margin can work if risk limits adjust dynamically and are visible in real time.

In turn, liquidation flows need transparency with pre-funded insurance pools that actually absorb stress instead of spreading it.

Finally, collateral systems need layered tiers, with cash and treasury bills as the safest base – and exchanges should allow volatile tokens only with tight limits on how much they count toward margin.

Yet, even with better design, one factor matters most – trust. Perps have earned it by becoming the market’s main pricing tool, but it’s still fragile.

The October 2025 cascade showed how quickly confidence can fade when operators lose control.

So, to strengthen it, exchanges could make trust measurable through transparent risk data, shared audits and real-time collateral visibility.

To my mind, if exchanges close these gaps, perps could become the financial system’s next backbone, ‘the infrastructure 2.0’ – liquid, integrated and self-balancing across assets and time zones.

If not, the market will keep repeating the same cycle of growth and self-correction, and the 68% share of Bitcoin trading will be the peak – not the beginning – of their maturity curve.

Arthur Azizov is the founder and investor of B2 Ventures, a private fintech alliance encompassing a portfolio of financial and technology companies, including B2BROKER and B2BINPAY. A serial entrepreneur with over a decade of experience, Arthur has been at the forefront of financial technology innovation, transforming liquidity, trading and payment services.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/Sensvector/Sergey Nivens

The post Will Perpetual Futures Define Financial Infrastructure 2.0 appeared first on The Daily Hodl.