Former FTX US President Brett Harrison is launching a new venture that brings one of crypto’s most popular — and controversial — trading instruments into traditional finance.
His startup, Architect Financial Technologies, has received approval in Bermuda to offer perpetual futures contracts tied to traditional assets such as stocks, indexes, commodities, foreign currencies and interest rates, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
Perpetual futures, or “perps,” let traders take leveraged long or short positions without contract expiry. To keep prices aligned with spot markets, exchanges use a funding rate mechanism, a periodic payment between long and short positions that balances demand.
Originally popularized by BitMEX and later by FTX, perps helped drive crypto’s explosive growth — monthly trading volumes have soared to $6.4 trillion in 2025 from $35 billion in 2018.
While FTX Global offered crypto perps with leverage up to 100 times, FTX US, where Harrison served as president, operated as a separate, regulated entity and did not offer such products.
Nevertheless, both exchanges collapsed in November 2022 following a severe liquidity crisis that exposed massive shortfalls and ultimately led to FTX’s bankruptcy filing.
Related: Kraken doubles down on US futures with $100M ‘Small’ acquisition
High risk, high scrutiny
Despite their success, perps are considered high-risk derivatives, drawing scrutiny from analysts and regulators alike. Coincall executive Fenni Kang warned in May that for inexperienced traders, “perps can be a ticking time bomb.”
In an interview with Cointelegraph, Kang warned that many traders overuse margin, meaning even small market moves can trigger devastating liquidations.
Perpetual futures have also drawn regulatory scrutiny. In 2023, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) warned of inadequate safeguards and settlement practices.
Still, perpetuals remain a cornerstone of crypto trading, dominated by platforms such as Binance, OKX, Bybit and Bitget.
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