President Donald Trump has publicly acknowledged crypto perpetuals for the first time, folding the derivative instrument into his broader vision of making the US the global hub for digital asset trading.
The Truth Social post positioned perpetuals alongside Bitcoin as financial products that US regulatory policy had previously driven offshore. Trump framed the shift as part of building what he called a “FUTURE-PROOF Digital Asset Market Structure.”
What are perpetuals, and why does this matter
Think of perpetual futures as a bet on an asset’s price that never expires. Traditional futures contracts have a set end date. Perpetuals don’t. They use a mechanism called a “funding rate” to keep their price tethered to the spot market, essentially charging or paying traders at regular intervals depending on which side of the trade is more crowded.
The instrument was born in crypto. BitMEX launched the first BTC perpetual swap back in 2016, and it quickly became the most popular way to trade with leverage in digital assets globally.
