Perpetual futures reached $61.7 trillion in trading volume last year, according to Reuters. The demand is drawing brokers toward the product, but adding perps means supporting funding, margin, liquidation, routing, and compliance in a product that trades around the clock.

How Perps Work: No Expiry, Funding, and Liquidation

A perpetual future gives traders long or short exposure to an asset with no fixed expiry date. Unlike a dated future, there is no settlement cycle that forces the trader to close or roll the contract. The position stays open as long as the margin holds.

Perps started as crypto-native contracts, first around bitcoin and then ether. Now brokers are building the same kind of no-expiry, leveraged exposure on FX pairs,…