A U.S.-regulated perpetual futures market is expected to be adopted by institutions in a manner similar to the launch of bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds in January 2024, CoinDesk reported, citing John Palmer (존 팔머), head of derivatives at Kraken.

In the report, Palmer predicted that professional traders would be the first to enter newly approved perpetual futures products, with large asset managers and investment advisory firms following later.

"With bitcoin ETFs, retail and professional investors entered quickly, and asset managers joined later because they had to go through their own due diligence and internal governance procedures," he said. "Perpetual futures will follow the same flow."

Perpetual futures are derivatives that allow leveraged positions to be maintained without an expiry date. Offshore exchanges such as Hyperliquid account for most cryptocurrency derivatives trading volume. U.S. traders have faced restrictions on access due to regulation.

Kraken recently secured futures commission merchant, exchange and clearing licenses under Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulation through the acquisitions of NinjaTrader and Bitnomial. It plans to launch perpetual futures on Kraken Pro within weeks.

Palmer cited a simple structure as the reason perpetual futures have succeeded in offshore markets. With dated futures, traders must roll over into a new contract when the contract expires, but perpetual futures allow positions to be maintained indefinitely. Kraken plans to remove that complexity and add a feature that uses cryptocurrency as collateral, aiming to give U.S. traders an experience similar to offshore markets.