Brett Harrison, the former President of FTX US, is initiating a new project that aims to integrate one of the most notable—and controversial—crypto trading instruments into mainstream finance.
His company, Architect Financial Technologies, has gained approval in Bermuda to provide perpetual futures contracts linked to traditional assets like stocks, indexes, commodities, foreign currencies, and interest rates, as reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday.
Perpetual futures, or “perps,” enable traders to take leveraged long or short positions without the limitation of contract expiry. To maintain price alignment with spot markets, exchanges implement a funding rate mechanism, which involves periodic payments between long and short positions to balance market demand.
First popularized by BitMEX and later by FTX, perps were significant in driving the explosive growth of crypto—monthly trading volumes surged to $6.4 trillion in 2025 from $35 billion in 2018.
While FTX Global offered crypto perps with leverage of up to 100 times, FTX US, where Harrison was president, operated as a separate, regulated entity that did not provide similar products.
Both exchanges, however, failed in November 2022 amid a severe liquidity crisis that revealed substantial shortfalls, ultimately leading to FTX’s bankruptcy.
Related: Kraken doubles down on US futures with $100M ‘Small’ acquisition
High risk, high scrutiny
Despite their popularity, perps are classified as high-risk derivatives, attracting scrutiny from both analysts and regulators. Fenni Kang, an executive at Coincall, cautioned in May that for novice traders, “perps can be a ticking time bomb.”
In a conversation with Cointelegraph, Kang highlighted that numerous traders over-leverage, making them vulnerable to significant liquidations from minor market fluctuations.
Perpetual futures have also faced regulatory challenges. In 2023, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) expressed concerns about insufficient safeguards and settlement protocols.
Nonetheless, perpetuals continue to be a fundamental aspect of crypto trading, primarily dominated by platforms like Binance, OKX, Bybit, and Bitget.
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