CFTC Approves Crypto Perpetual Futures Framework

Most traders don’t scrutinize crypto fees — until they do the math. In Axi’s case, the conversation around perpetual futures isn’t just about product availability. It’s about whether a regulated broker can genuinely compete with exchanges on price. According to Stuart Cooke, Head of New Business at AXI, the answer is yes — and here’s how they’re doing it: Aggregated liquidity, not a single exchange. AXI pulls from multiple exchanges to give traders order book depth and market visibility, without the counterparty and custody risks that come with trading directly on-chain or on unregulated venues. Fees that hold up to scrutiny. Perpetual futures taker fees start at 0.035% — a figure that sits comfortably alongside what major centralised exchanges charge, while sitting inside a regulated, institutionally-backed framework. 150 perpetual futures products today. With 200+ spot products launching imminently, the depth of offering is designed to meet serious traders where they are — not offer a token crypto presence. The question brokers used to avoid was: “Why would a crypto-native trader come to us?” AXI’s answer is straightforward — execution quality, pricing transparency, and a regulatory track record that exchanges still struggle to match. 🔗 Full interview live on FinanceFeeds https://lnkd.in/ej3fD-32 #PerpetualFutures #CryptoTrading #AXI #CryptoDerivatives #DigitalAssets #MultiAssetTrading #FXIndustry #CryptoFees #InstitutionalTrading #BrokerNews #FinanceFeeds #Bitcoin

TRUMP vs. THE FED: The Week That Re-wrote Crypto Regulation: In just 72 hours, we saw a massive $1.7B inflow and a regulatory shift that would have seemed impossible a year ago. Here is the breakdown of the most pivotal week in crypto this year: After Middle East tensions sent BTC sliding to $63,000, a massive "short squeeze" on March 5 forced the liquidation of $110 million in bearish positions, reclaiming the $71,000 level. Institutional giants moved in as spot Bitcoin ETFs saw their largest two-day inflow since 2025. BlackRock’s IBIT led the charge, signaling that major funds view $70,000 as a solid accumulation floor. Kraken Financial became the first crypto bank to be granted a Federal Reserve Master Account. This allows them direct access to the U.S. payments system, marking a massive step for industry legitimacy. President Trump publicly accused major banks of holding the CLARITY and GENIUS Acts hostage. He warned that stalling this legislation risks losing the global financial lead to China. The Big Question: With the Fed finally opening the door to crypto banks, are we looking at a permanent shift in how Wall Street operates, or is this just a temporary truce? Drop your thoughts below. 👇 #CryptoNews #Bitcoin #Fintech #Web3 #VALR

One oil contract on a crypto exchange just clocked $1.7 billion in daily trading volume. That's 250 times more than it saw the week before the war started. This is not a crypto story. It's a market infrastructure story. 👇 When Iranian infrastructure strikes broke over the weekend, CME traders couldn't react. Hyperliquid's oil perpetual stayed open. Non-crypto investors flooded in. JPMorgan's analysts, led by managing director Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, flagged the shift directly: the WTI crude oil contract on Hyperliquid became the exchange's third-most traded product after Bitcoin and Ether, with open interest climbing to around $300 million. Here's the part most people are glossing over. 🔍 Traditional finance has spent years asking whether DeFi solves a real problem. A war broke out on a Saturday. CME was closed. Traders who had never touched crypto opened accounts on a decentralised exchange to hedge oil exposure because there was simply nowhere else to go. That's not adoption driven by speculation. That's adoption driven by necessity. CME Group, Nasdaq, and NYSE are now all moving toward extended trading hours in response. But as JPMorgan's analysts noted, these traditional venues don't offer perpetual futures or the leverage levels that made Hyperliquid the venue of choice under pressure. The gap isn't closing as fast as TradFi thinks. For those of us building in Web3 right now, this matters beyond the trading volume numbers. 📈 Communities follow infrastructure. When non-crypto traders start using onchain venues out of necessity, they bring their networks, their questions, and their scepticism with them. The community layer of DeFi protocols is about to meet an audience it has never served before. That audience won't speak our language. They won't know what a perp is, what USDC margin means, or why self-custody matters. They'll just know the platform worked when nothing else did. The protocols that build community infrastructure for that transition will own the next wave of users. What's your read on this? Is this a one-off war trade, or the moment institutional DeFi adoption crossed the threshold it's been approaching for years? 🤔 #DeFi #Web3 #CryptoTrading #Hyperliquid #TradFi #CommunityBuilding #OnchainFinance

February’s Crypto Market Pulse is out now: #crypto posted its fifth straight monthly decline amid risk-off sentiment. In this commentary, we share our latest views on how geopolitical tensions, safe-haven flows, and the #Fed policy outlook are shaping crypto market dynamics and what we are watching before turning more constructive on risk. Read our research: https://lnkd.in/gaA5WRZB #BTC #ETH #CryptoETF #VirtualAsset #VA #DigitalAsset #MicroBit #MicroBitCapital #HKETF - This material is produced by MicroBit Capital Management Limited ("MicroBit") and is intended for Hong Kong investors only. All content is for general information purposes and does not constitute an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy or sell any financial instruments, nor is it legal, financial, tax, or investment advice. Investments involve risks. The value of investments can go up or down, and investors may lose some or all of their invested capital. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. You should carefully consider your investment objectives and risk tolerance and seek advice from a professional financial advisor before making any investment decisions. MicroBit does not guarantee the accuracy, timeliness, completeness, or reliability of the information provided. All materials are presented “as is”, without any warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including but not limited to merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. Unless otherwise specified, some of the views and recommendations are compiled by MicroBit based on publicly available data and market experience. Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) authorization is not a recommendation or endorsement of a scheme, nor does it guarantee its commercial merits or performance. This material has not been reviewed by the SFC. Copyright © 2026 MicroBit Capital Management Limited. All rights reserved.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is signalling that the structure of the exchange-traded options market may need to evolve as Bitcoin ETF activity accelerates across U.S. markets. Since the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs, trading volumes and derivatives activity linked to these products have expanded rapidly. Options on Bitcoin ETFs are now emerging as an important venue for hedging, liquidity provision, and price discovery within the regulated financial system. Against this backdrop, the SEC is preparing to examine whether the current options market framework remains appropriate for a market where crypto-linked instruments are increasingly present. Issues such as exchange competition, market structure, liquidity concentration, and investor protections are likely to feature prominently in the discussion. The broader implication is structural rather than procedural. Bitcoin exposure is progressively migrating from offshore crypto-native venues into regulated capital markets infrastructure. As this transition continues, the derivatives layer, particularly options, will play a growing role in shaping volatility management, institutional participation, and price formation. For policymakers, this raises an important regulatory question: whether existing derivatives frameworks can accommodate digital asset-linked products, or whether targeted adjustments will be required to preserve market integrity while supporting innovation. The expansion of Bitcoin ETF options illustrates a broader trend. Digital assets are increasingly interacting with traditional financial market architecture, forcing regulators and market operators to reconsider how legacy market structures adapt to a new asset class #DigitalAssets #BitcoinETF #MarketStructure #FinancialRegulation #DerivativesMarkets #CapitalMarkets #CryptoPolicy #InstitutionalCrypto #SEC #FinancialInnovation #CryptoMarkets

🚨 The convergence no one predicted is here: Bitcoin-backed municipal bonds just got a Moody's rating. This isn't just financial innovation — it's a fundamental shift in how we think about risk stratification. For decades, munis have been the bedrock of conservative portfolios. Bitcoin has been the volatile frontier. Now they're merging into a single instrument. What this signals for investors: • Institutional crypto adoption is accelerating beyond ETFs • Municipal issuers are exploring creative funding mechanisms • Rating agencies are developing frameworks for hybrid digital assets The real story? If Moody's can rate this, the door opens for countless crypto-collateralized traditional instruments. We're watching the regulatory and financial infrastructure catch up to innovation in real-time. For CFOs and treasury teams: this creates new hedging possibilities. For crypto skeptics: the establishment is no longer ignoring digital assets — it's integrating them. What hybrid financial products would you have considered impossible five years ago? Source: Bloomberg, April 2026 https://lnkd.in/dJAcJUBS Chart data: Bloomberg, CoinDesk historical data, Fidelity Digital Assets research #Bitcoin #MunicipalBonds #FinancialInnovation #CryptoAdoption #InstitutionalInvesting

📊𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗮 $𝟰𝘁𝗻 𝗚𝗮𝗽 𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝗿𝘆𝗽𝘁𝗼-𝗗𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻 The Federal Reserve Board just published a working paper every prudential regulator and derivatives market participant should read: "𝘐𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘊𝘳𝘺𝘱𝘵𝘰 𝘊𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘙𝘪𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘜𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘴" (FEDS 2026-009). The finding is straightforward: the industry's de facto initial margin standard — ISDA SIMM — has no framework for crypto risk, despite a $4 trillion market already trading crypto-sensitive derivatives. 🔍 1️⃣𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗳𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗿𝘆𝗽𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗥𝗶𝘀𝗸 𝗯𝘆 𝗮𝘁 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝟮𝗫 🚨 Shoehorning floating crypto-assets into the commodities risk class produces a delta risk weight of 58. A properly calibrated dedicated crypto class gives you 132. That's not a modelling nuance — that's a material margin shortfall at institutions with crypto-sensitive books. 2️⃣𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝗥𝗶𝘀𝗸 ≠ 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗿𝘆𝗽𝘁𝗼-𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝗥𝗶𝘀𝗸 🪙 Stress periods don't overlap. Inter-bucket correlation is essentially zero. USDT and BTC are not variations of the same exposure, and any framework treating them as such is analytically indefensible. 3️⃣𝗖𝗿𝘆𝗽𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗰𝘁 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲𝘀 🌐 Cross-risk class correlations with equities, commodities, FX, and credit all fall below 13%. Institutions claiming diversification benefits across mixed crypto and traditional books should expect that assumption to face regulatory scrutiny. Margin models tell you what your exposure looks like on paper. 📊 On-chain intelligence tells you what's actually moving — the wallet activity, fund flows, and counterparty behaviour that no term sheet captures. That's what ChainArgos is built for. If you're a regulator, financial institution, or market participant trying to understand the real risk behind crypto exposures, we should talk. #CryptoRegulation #PrudentialRegulation #DigitalAssets #InitialMargin #ISDA #SIMM #Stablecoins #DerivativesRegulation #FinancialStability #UnclearedDerivatives #BlockchainIntelligence #ChainArgos

In a significant development announced today, the SEC and CFTC have jointly released a comprehensive interpretation that sets out a clearer token taxonomy for digital assets. The framework categorises crypto into five groups: digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools, stablecoins under the GENIUS Act, and digital securities. Read the full article here 👇 https://ainslie.to/4sndkzB

SEC and CFTC Issue Landmark Joint Guidance on Classification of Crypto Assets: Part 1 The 🇺🇸 SEC and CFTC just did something unprecedented. For the first time, they jointly issued a 60-page framework classifying crypto assets under US securities laws. No more "regulation by enforcement." No more guessing. Here's what every founder, investor, and regulator needs to know. THE 5 CATEGORIES (At a Glance) - Bitcoin and Ether are officially "digital commodities." Years of uncertainty. Resolved. - Meme coins are not securities. The SEC confirmed they're digital collectibles: bought for entertainment, culture, and community. Not investment contracts. - Stablecoins under the GENIUS Act are excluded by statute. Congress already decided. -Tokenized stocks, bonds, and funds? Still securities. Format doesn't change substance. HOWEVER: A non-security crypto asset can become a security if: 1. An issuer makes representations or promises to undertake essential managerial efforts 2. Investors reasonably expect profits from those efforts 3. The asset is offered in a common enterprise And it can cease being a security if: 1. The issuer fulfills its promises. 2. The network becomes functional and decentralized. 3. No reasonable investor still expects profits from a central party's efforts. Lessons Learned for this clime: This is not just an American document. It's a global blueprint. When Nigerian regulators (SEC, CBN, NITDA) eventually draft rules—they will look here. When global exchanges decide which assets to list—they will apply this framework. When institutional capital flows into crypto—it will follow these categories. #CryptoRegulation #SEC #CFTC #DigitalAssets #Bitcoin #Ethereum #MemeCoins #Stablecoins #Web3Law #BlockchainRegulation #DigitalCommodities #Tokenization #Part1

The U.S. has long been sidelined in the Trillions-dollar crypto perpetual futures market. Is that about to change, and what does it mean for institutional investors and active traders? The CFTC's imminent framework for U.S. crypto perpetual futures aims to repatriate massive offshore liquidity, positioning the U.S. as a dominant player in digital asset derivatives. This regulatory shift creates significant opportunities for regulated exchanges and institutional investors, while also introducing new risks tied to leveraged trading and potential market volatility. Active traders should prepare for increased market depth and evolving strategies as the competitive landscape between centralized and decentralized platforms continues to take shape. Dive into our latest analysis to understand this critical inflection point for the digital asset space. Read more: https://lnkd.in/g-w44ARF #CryptoPerps #DigitalAssets #CFTC #Fintech #Kavout