Kraken has changed the traditional trading experience for eligible US customers on Kraken Pro, bringing its most popular crypto derivatives products under the supervision of in-house regulators for the first time.
Contracts are listed on Bitnomial, a CFTC-licensed exchange, clearinghouse, and brokerage that Kraken’s parent company, Payward, found earlier this year. The launch gives US traders the opportunity to access futures – a product that generated more than $60 trillion in global trade in 2025 – within CFTC regulation, on a platform that they can use based on spot, limit, and futures listed by CME.
A perpetual future tracks the price of an underlying asset with no expiration date. Unlike futures contracts, positions do not require rollover and can remain open as long as margin requirements are met. This structure gives traders the opportunity to invest, long or short, in stocks that they do not hold.
Maintaining contract prices to reflect market conditions, History of the Kraken Inexorables use an 8-hour trading system. At 7pm, 3am, and 11am CT each day, holders of long and short positions exchange premiums. When the permanent tree is above the ground, the average length pays for the shorts; when below, shorts pay long, company he said.
The beginning of the Kraken
The installation is fixed Bitnomialwhich holds all US licenses – exchanges, clearinghouses, and brokerages. Payward closed the Bitnomial acquisition in May of this year, one year after completing the acquisition of NinjaTrader in May 2025.
These two acquisitions gave Kraken the controllable tools it needed to deliver a stable indoor environment.
Perpetual contracts on Kraken Pro are housed in the same futures portfolio as those listed on CME, meaning traders can trade CME futures and crypto perpetuals against a single collateral pool. This system eliminates the need to have cash in multiple locations to pay for various responsibilities.
Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, organized the offerings according to performance:
“The most useful thing that the exchange business can do for a large trader is to put everything in one place. Places, limits, futures and fixed are all in the same account in Kraken, fixed and future are backed by the same collateral so that the capital does not change half a dozen places.”
At launch, eligible US customers can trade bitcoin indefinitely and eight other commodities. Kraken said that they intend to expand the partnership that has been established and the options that will be available over time.
Products are offered through NinjaTrader Clearing, LLC, doing business as Kraken Derivatives US, a Merchant registered by the CFTC Futures Commission.
The launch follows a CFTC ruling in May that opened the door for regulated platforms to offer perpetual futures.
The agency approved Kalshi’s perpetual bitcoin contracts that same month and issued guidelines that recreated Coinbase’s approach to connecting US customers to global options and perpetual markets.
Kalshi he saw a lot more than $1 billion in continuous sales within the first week of offering the product.
