The fintech firm LMAX Group, based in London, has ventured into the leveraged crypto derivatives market by launching perpetual futures contracts linked to Bitcoin and Ether, targeting institutional investors.
The exchange reports an average daily spot volume exceeding $40 billion across FX and digital assets, stating that this initiative was spurred by client demands for high-leverage crypto market access, as detailed in a Wednesday Bloomberg article.
“Perpetual futures have become the dominant product in the crypto sector for the past three to four years,” stated LMAX CEO David Mercer. “Our institutional clients, including leading proprietary trading firms and brokers, are in search of such exposure,” he added.
Perpetuals are financial derivatives that operate similarly to traditional futures contracts but with no expiration date. LMAX’s offering provides leverage up to 100x. The company operates forex brokerage services in the UK, Europe, New Zealand, and Mauritius, as indicated on its website.
Cointelegraph reached out to LMAX Group for further comments but had not received a reply by the time of publication.
Related: High risk, high reward: Crypto perpetual futures gain momentum in US
Perps in crypto trading volume
Perpetual futures currently dominate crypto trading, representing 68% of all Bitcoin (BTC) trading volume in 2025, up from 66% the previous year, according to Kaiko.
Major exchanges like Binance, Bybit, and OKX account for nearly 70% of the open interest in these instruments, with daily perpetual volumes fluctuating between $10 billion and $30 billion, and peak days reaching up to $80 billion on Binance alone, according to Kaiko.
Data from CoinMarketCap indicates that perpetuals led crypto derivatives trading in the last 24 hours with $1.39 trillion in volume, significantly surpassing traditional futures contracts, which only saw $670.61 million.
Additionally, per DefiLlama data, decentralized perpetual platforms collectively saw $20.5 billion in 24-hour volume, with a total of $683.5 billion over the past 30 days, marking a 16.84% rise week-over-week. Hyperliquid alone accounted for over $65 billion in seven-day volume.
Related: Crypto perp futures are coming ‘very soon,’ says CFTC’s Mersinger
Perps in the US
LMAX Group’s entry into the crypto derivatives arena coincides with significant US platforms moving to provide retail access to perpetual futures. Coinbase began offering perpetuals to US users in July, while the CBOE intends to launch its version in November.
In April, Europe’s One Trading also launched MiFID II-compliant perpetuals, although these are only available to institutional investors. The platform plans to extend access to eligible retail clients as well.
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