Singapore Exchange to list bitcoin futures, join global shift in expanding crypto derivatives

Singapore Exchange (SGX) plans to list bitcoin perpetual futures as traditional exchanges push deeper into cryptocurrency derivative markets.
Singapore’s largest exchange group intends to launch the contracts in the second half of 2025, a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. The company would strictly target institutional clients and professional investors, with retail customers barred from trading the instruments.
The move was the latest sign that established exchange operators were branching out into bitcoin derivatives, as US President Donald Trump’s pro-cryptocurrency agenda boosts demand for digital assets’ exposure. Bloomberg reported on March 4 that Japan’s Osaka Dojima Exchange Inc., which traced its roots to the 18th century, was planning to seek approval to list bitcoin futures.
SGX hoped to act as a bridge between regulated financial markets and the freewheeling world of cryptocurrency trading. The firm thinks its offering will “significantly expand institutional market access,” the spokesperson said.
The planned products were still awaiting approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Perpetual futures – which do not have an expiry date – are a way for traders to bet on price changes in an underlying asset without needing to own the asset itself. SGX was not the only exchange looking to launch the contracts in Singapore: in January 2024, Hoboken, New Jersey-based EDX Markets LLC, a digital-asset firm backed by Citadel Securities, revealed plans to offer the instruments in the city state.
Perpetual contracts were a staple of offshore cryptocurrency venues like Binance Holdings Ltd. and OKX. They were also a mainstay of FTX Co-Founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed cryptocurrency empire.
Doing business with cryptocurrency exchanges created credit risk for counterparties. The short history of cryptocurrency trading was littered with episodes of stolen assets and failed exchanges. The SGX spokesperson said its Aa2 rating from Moody’s would offer a trusted alternative for trading cryptocurrency futures.
The idea of a perpetually rolling future was an approach already common in the commodity markets. Japan Exchange Group Inc., for example, offered investors “rolling-spot” gold futures, giving them exposure to the current gold price without having to worry about gold bars arriving on their doorstep.
The contracts were first developed by the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX in 2016, Bloomberg previously reported. The contracts use a mechanism similar to some swap contracts: if a position was in the money, one party must pay the other, a situation that reverses if the contract falls out of the money.
Conventional futures in bitcoin and Ether that expired at a particular date were already widely offered by US exchanges. In October 2024, Chicago-based exchange and clearing house Bitnomial Inc. said it wanted to launch perpetual futures in the US market using a new technology platform called Botanical.