Singapore Exchange (SGX) has received authorization from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to offer its Bitcoin and Ether perpetual futures contracts to U.S. institutional investors. The move expands access to regulated cryptocurrency derivatives as traditional financial firms increase their participation in digital assets.

The contracts, which trade without an expiry date, were launched by SGX in November 2025 and are available to institutional, accredited and expert investors. SGX said they provide exchange-traded clearing, margining and risk-management standards for cryptocurrency derivatives.

The authorization gives U.S. institutions another venue for trading Bitcoin and Ether derivatives outside U.S. exchanges, while advancing SGX’s effort to develop institutional cryptocurrency markets in Asia.

“[This is] an important milestone [that] bridges the U.S. TradFi participants trading cyrpto futures with Asian liquidity pools [and] legitimizes crypto derivatives as a regulated asset class,” said KC Lam, Head of Crypto Derivatives at SGX Group.

The approval operates under Regulation 48.10, the framework through which the CFTC allows a registered Foreign Board of Trade (FBOT)—an overseas exchange recognized by the CFTC—to give U.S. participants direct access to its trading system without separately registering as a full U.S.-regulated exchange.

In practice, the framework allows qualifying foreign platforms to make their existing order books available to U.S. institutional traders under CFTC oversight, rather than requiring a new, standalone U.S. listing.

SGX said its Bitcoin and Ether perpetual contracts are being used for both macro-driven directional trades and arbitrage strategies. These include transactions that seek to exploit differences in funding rates and prices across trading venues.

Unlike crypto-native perpetual contracts, SGX’s products have no expiry but use traditional margin calls and additional collateral requirements instead of automatic liquidations. The structure is intended to reduce forced position closures during sharp market moves. Trading and clearing are also separated, with clearing members serving as an intermediate risk buffer in a structure similar to traditional futures markets.

SGX does not accept stablecoins as collateral, citing the risk that they could lose their peg during periods of market volatility.

Since their November 2025 launch, SGX’s Bitcoin and Ether perpetual futures have recorded approximately $5.8 billion in cumulative traded volume. Bitcoin accounts for 66% of open interest and 83% of average daily volume. The highest single-day volume reached $145 million in notional value.

SGX said the contracts are intended to bring the structure and risk controls of listed derivatives to products that are widely used in cryptocurrency markets.

“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. We plan to broaden our offerings but we are taking a disciplined, step-by-step approach,” Lam said.

The original report was published by BitcoinKE on September 10, 2026: https://bitcoinke.io/2026/09/sgx-opens-bitcoin-ether-perps-to-us-institutions/