Wall Street's existential crisis over perpetual futures — the 24/7 security on steroids — just got urgent

Perpetual futures, known as "perps" in short, are blockchain-enabled, 24/7-traded, never-expiring 'futures' – a label now legally contested by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange – are growing so fast overseas that they almost stole the show for the biggest IPO of all time and knocked $18 billion off the combined market values of the CME Group , Cboe Global Markets , the Intercontinental Exchange and Miami International Holdings in two days.

Now, after a press conference by President Trump on Wednesday that teased a path to CFTC regulation of Hyperliquid, the fast-growing decentralized venue for trading perps, Wall Street's game plan may need to lean more towards an embrace than a fight.

In its simplest form, you can think of perpetuals as a bet that never expires. They can track almost any asset class, trade around the clock and offer tons of leverage. Investors are worried perps will disrupt the business model of the traditional exchanges, which make a substantial amount of money off the so-called roll in derivatives, where traders extend the life of an expiring contract by selling a near-dated contract to buy a longer-dated one. Perpetuals never expire, negating the need to roll contracts and depriving exchanges of a lucrative revenue stream.

While the initial approval of perpetual futures trading in U.S. has been limited to cryptocurrencies, the president's comments this week suggest regulated perp trading may soon be available on traditional asset classes like stocks and commodities, which are booming in popularity on Hyperliquid this year.

Brokers and exchanges have extended trading hours for several years now. Charles Schwab's TD Ameritrade pioneered "24/5" trading in 2018, the London Stock Exchange will join next year, and now most brokers, along with Cboe, offer trading in major securities including index options in some form on all but Saturdays and Sundays. The advent of monthly, then weekly, and eventually same-day options expiry also expanded the calendar from the inside-out. In that context, perpetual futures, borne of crypto origins – an asset class whose appeal stemmed in large part due to constant access – look like a natural next step.

But some investors and observers point to the product's internal leverage as a cause for concern and controversy. While prediction marketplace Kalshi and centralized crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Binance shined a light on the asset class, it's decentralized Hyperliquid that dominates the emerging field. It's a trading-settlement blockchain that together with marketplace operator Trade[XYZ] makes Hype...