Singapore Exchange can now route American trading desks into its crypto perpetual futures order book, after the bourse secured CFTC authorization under Regulation 48.10 to extend its bitcoin (BTP) and ether (ETP) contracts to U.S. institutional participants.
"Under the Regulation 48.10 ruling, we have obtained CFTC authorization to open our crypto products to U.S. institutional access. Previously, U.S. participants couldn't trade these contracts but now they can," KC Lam, head of crypto derivatives at SGX Group, said.
The rule lets a registered Foreign Board of Trade recognized by the CFTC give U.S. participants direct access to its trading system without registering separately as a full U.S.-regulated exchange. SGX's contracts have traded $5.8 billion, or roughly 400,000 lots, since launching in late November 2025. Open interest across both stood at 1.3k lots ($19 million) at the end of August, with bitcoin accounting for 66% of open interest and 83% of daily average volume since inception. The best single session reached 11.5k lots, or $145 million notional.
The immediate constraint is not demand but plumbing. New clients pass through clearing members for KYC checks, deposits and API connectivity, a process Lam said takes two to four weeks regardless of jurisdiction. "With our FIS-enabled back-office integration now fully in place, we are actively preparing our U.S. clearing members to onboard clients over the next month or two," he said.
Margin calls instead of auto-liquidations
SGX's contracts carry no expiry, mirroring crypto-native perpetuals, but settle risk through margin calls and top-up collateral rather than automatic liquidation. That design choice is the venue's main structural difference from offshore perpetual platforms, where forced closures can cascade. Last October's liquidation wave was compounded by auto-deleveraging, which socialized losses across both winning and losing positions.
"Unlike crypto-native venues where sudden volatility can trigger auto-liquidations, our traditional risk framework uses margin calls and top-up collateral, to prevent involuntary position closures during market spikes," Lam said.
The exchange also separates trading from clearing, routing trades through clearing members that act as an intermediate risk buffer — a structure closer to listed futures and commodities markets than to venues that combine exchange, clearinghouse and market-maker roles. Stablecoins are excluded as acceptable collateral, Lam said, "as they can break peg during volatile periods."
Contracts are benchmarked to indices developed with CoinDesk Indices and managed under the EU Benchmark Regulation, according to Mohit Baheti, head of iEdge Indices at SGX Group.
Traders currently use the perps for two distinct purposes: macro-directional bets on bitcoin and ether tied to themes including currency debasement, and cash-and-carry trades that harvest funding-rate and pricing differentials between venues. The arbitrage leg is where U.S. access matters most — American desks can now close the spread against SGX's Asian order book rather than routing the hedge through CME Group's regulated bitcoin and ether futures, which remain the dominant U.S. venue for institutional crypto derivatives exposure.
Lam tied volume growth to onboarding rather than market momentum, which means the U.S. contribution will show up in open interest and daily average volume data over the next two months, not immediately. The 1.3k-lot open interest base is small enough that even modest U.S. allocation would register as a visible percentage shift.
Next in the pipeline are dated bitcoin and ether futures and options. "The next step in our pipeline is launching dated futures and options for Bitcoin and Ethereum. Developing that heavy-duty infrastructure is the major lift; once in place, adding other major coins may become a straightforward process like adding another contract," Lam said.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
