Perps, Trump, and the rise of 24/7 Markets
As Trump moves markets after hours, perpetual futures and 24/7 trading are moving into the mainstream
Trump has declared himself the “crypto president,” but in many ways he’s also the “perps president.”
As is well documented, Trump doesn’t sleep and he has no hesitation making market-moving statements outside traditional trading hours. It’s a strange but fitting backdrop: markets are moving toward round-the-clock trading just as we have a president best described as spontaneous, and at times, chaotic.
That dynamic was on full display this weekend.
Just days after S&P Global said it would license the S&P 500 for trading on Hyperliquid, Trump said Friday afternoon—after markets had closed—that the U.S. was “getting very close to meeting our objectives.” The S&P 500 proxy on Hyperliquid rallied.
Then on Saturday at 7:44pm ET, Trump escalated, threatening to strike Iran’s power plants if the Strait of Hormuz wasn’t reopened. The reaction was immediate: the S&P 500 on Hyperliquid sold off.
It didn’t end there. Early Monday morning, Donald Trump said the U.S. and Iran had held talks on a “complete and total resolution of hostilities.” S&P 500 futures surged more than 3.5% on the news. Then Iran denied Trump’s comments.
The Trump presidency may not be ushering in 24/7 markets, but it’s making them impossible to ignore.
It’s still unclear which perpetual product will emerge as dominant—or whether perps become the primary structure for always-on markets. Futures have historically been less familiar to U.S. retail investors than options, and it’s an open question whether traditional brokers can successfully bring these products to their client base. I’m skeptical. It’s not obvious that what works in crypto translates cleanly to TradFi users.
Still, the growth is undeniable.
Open interest across perp DEX platforms has surged. In January 2026, perp DEX volume hit $739 billion, with decentralized venues capturing 10.2% of total crypto perpetuals trading—up from just 2.0% two years ago.
News flow across both centralized and decentralized perps has also accelerated since the HYPE TGE, as GSR Research’s Carlos Guzman and Slater Santer highlight in this chart:
And this morning brought more momentum from within the GSR ecosystem:
Katana has acquired early decentralized exchange IDEX and launched Katana Perps, a platform designed to unify spot and derivatives trading onchain. The move, the first under CEO Matthew Fisher, reflects a push to own more of the trading stack—and capture more of the economics.
It also underscores a broader shift: the environment for perps is becoming increasingly constructive. Here’s Katana:
The move comes as regulators in the U.S. signal a path toward allowing crypto perpetual futures, marking a potential inflection point for onchain derivatives. At the same time, trading activity continues to shift toward always-on markets, where price discovery increasingly happens in real time rather than within fixed trading hours. As global markets adjust to a new reality, macro risk no longer waits for market hours, reinforcing the importance of continuous, always-on trading environments.