Timeline
- 7.5
Binance lists 7 USDT-margined stock perpetual futures with up to 20x leverage
Binance has launched seven new USDT-margined perpetual futures contracts tied to stock exposure, offering leverage of up to 20x. The listing extends the exchange's derivatives lineup beyond crypto assets into equity-linked products that trade continuously around the clock. The launch blurs the boundary between crypto derivatives venues and traditional equity markets, giving crypto-native traders leveraged, round-the-clock exposure to stocks without a brokerage account. Because Binance is the largest exchange by derivatives volume, the move raises the competitive bar for rival platforms and puts equity-linked derivatives squarely in front of regulators. Because the contracts are USDT-margined, collateral, margin and settlement are denominated in the stablecoin rather than the underlying shares, so the product provides synthetic price exposure with no physical delivery of stock. Leverage of up to 20x is far above the margin levels typical of regulated equity markets, and as perpetual contracts they carry no expiry date, meaning positions can be held indefinitely against periodic funding payments.
- 7.5
Binance Launches 24/7 FX Perpetual Futures With Weekend EWMA Pricing
Binance announced it will launch 24/7 foreign exchange perpetual futures, beginning with a USDBRLUSDT contract that goes live on Sept. 21, settles in USDT and offers up to 100x leverage. The contract uses a dual-mode pricing system: a weighted index from third-party data providers during regular FX trading hours, and an orderbook-based exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) on weekends and public holidays. The launch pushes the world's largest crypto exchange into foreign exchange, the largest financial market by turnover, which the Bank for International Settlements pegged at $9.6 trillion in average daily OTC volume in April 2025. It follows similar 24/7 FX perpetual products from Bybit and Kraken, signaling that crypto derivatives venues are competing to capture FX exposure and off-hours price discovery that traditional FX markets cannot serve. The weekend mechanism deliberately avoids external price feeds and instead derives prices from Binance's own orderbook via an EWMA, a design already applied to Binance's commodity-based TradFi perpetual contracts, which means off-hours margin requirements and liquidation levels can be driven by thinner internal liquidity rather than a reference FX rate. The contract settles in USDT, has a tick size of 0.0001 and a minimum notional value of 5 USDT according to Binance's futures announcement.
- 7.5
Binance Lists SpaceX Pre-IPO Perpetual Futures as $2T Valuation Bets Build
Binance launched a SpaceX-linked pre-IPO perpetual futures contract, tickered SPCXUSDT, on May 21, 2026, marking the first pre-IPO futures product listed on the exchange. The contract lets traders take exposure to SpaceX's overall equity valuation ahead of its expected Nasdaq debut, with market participants building positions around a roughly $2 trillion valuation narrative. This is a market-structure innovation that extends crypto derivatives beyond crypto assets into private-company exposure, giving retail traders a synthetic way to bet on pre-IPO valuations that were previously reserved for venture and institutional investors. It signals a broadening convergence between crypto exchanges and traditional private-market finance, and could prompt rival venues to launch similar pre-IPO contract suites. The contract is a perpetual future that references the company's total equity valuation rather than an estimated pre-IPO share price, is settled in stablecoins, and grants no actual equity or ownership in SpaceX. Binance has said it may migrate the contract into its standard TradFi perpetual framework once it can derive a stable mark price for the underlying asset.
- 8.5
Nvidia in talks to back Anthropic IPO with up to $10B
Reuters reported on Saturday that Nvidia is in talks to invest about $10 billion in a potential Anthropic initial public offering, with Anthropic seeking to raise as much as $100 billion at a valuation of roughly $2 trillion. Both companies declined to comment or did not respond, and the people familiar said the confidential discussions remain ongoing and could change. If completed, the offering would be the largest IPO on record and would deepen Nvidia's strategic entanglement with one of its most important model-training customers, locking in demand for its GPUs while giving Anthropic a marquee backer ahead of listing. It also signals that the AI capital race is shifting from private venture rounds toward public markets at a scale that can reshape the competitive standings of frontier labs. The talks are unconfirmed and confidential, so both the $10 billion figure and the roughly $2 trillion valuation could shift before any filing; Reuters notes Nvidia would serve as an early strategic backer and strengthen ties to a key customer rather than as an underwriter. Separately, Anthropic has already been building its own infrastructure footprint, including a 20-year, roughly $9 billion deal for 191 megawatts of capacity from Riot Platforms' Rockdale, Texas campus.
- 7.5
Binance Anthropic pre-IPO perpetual implies $2.1 trillion valuation
On Sept. 9, Binance's pre-IPO perpetual contract for Anthropic (ANTHROPICUSDT) traded above $2,100, implying a company valuation above $2.1 trillion when multiplied by Binance's estimated one-billion-share denominator. That implied level is more than double Anthropic's $965 billion post-money valuation from its May 28 Series H financing. The move shows how crypto derivatives venues are manufacturing synthetic price discovery for private AI companies that have no public stock index, effectively letting leveraged traders put a mark on pre-IPO equity. Because both the mark and the share-count convention are defined by the exchange rather than by any equity market, this is a high-signal market-structure development rather than a systemic repricing of Anthropic itself. Binance allows up to 20x leverage on ANTHROPICUSDT, charges funding every eight hours at +0.005% per interval, and derives its mark from a 10-second average that can move at most 1% per second and reaches further back when transactions are sparse. The contract confers no equity or ownership claim, and Binance's own announcement states the estimated one-billion-share count may differ from the actual total and warns that it does not endorse the resulting implied value.
- 7.5
Kraken launches pre-IPO perpetual futures for OpenAI and Anthropic
Kraken has listed pre-IPO perpetual futures on Anthropic and OpenAI, allowing eligible clients to go long or short with up to 5x leverage before either AI company completes an IPO. The cash-settled contracts reference private-market equity valuations and convey no equity ownership. This extends crypto derivatives into equity-style exposure on two of the world's highest-valued private AI companies, creating an on-ramp for traders who want AI-firm beta before an IPO. It also intensifies competition among major exchanges, as Binance and Coinbase already offer similar pre-IPO perpetual products, and may draw more institutional flows into crypto-native derivatives venues. Kraken's contracts are cash-settled synthetic instruments whose pricing tracks each company's total equity valuation rather than an estimated IPO share price. Per the launch materials, eligible traders can use up to 5x leverage, and positions do not represent any equity or ownership rights in the underlying companies.