Huobi Derivative Market (DM) on Thursday announced its plans to launch perpetual futures contracts for digital assets.
Though the details of the contracts are not public yet, the Singapore-headquartered Exchange is planning to launch the new product in the first quarter of next year.
Crypto futures - the next big thing
Huobi launched its dedicated derivatives platform last year, which saw a massive demand in the market. According to the exchange, the daily trading volume since October on the platform surpassed $2.5 billion, the majority of which came from its BTC market with an average daily volume of $1.5 billion.
With this massive demand, the platform is taping another popular market, expanding its offering to the derivatives traders.
Commenting on the prospect, Jason Lan, vice president of Huobi Group, said: “Our platform will expand to more diverse markets and add more product types, with perpetual contracts are just a start.”
Perpetual contracts are becoming very popular in the crypto industry lately. These instruments are very similar to traditional futures contracts and grant investors the ability to profit from selling digital assets, either short or long, similar to futures contracts. However, unlike futures contracts, perpetual contracts have no expiration date.
Huobi DM has to compete with major exchanges like Bithumb, KuCoin, and FTX in offering the new trading product.
Huobi’s biggest market competitor Binance also jumped into offering the new contract with the acquisition of digital asset derivatives platform JEX earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Huobi is pushing very hard for its international expansion. The exchange recently launched its cloud-based services in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and is offering white-label services to the exchanges operating in the region.
In September, Huobi also entered the Argentinian market, which is struggling with hyperinflation, making it a very lucrative market for crypto.
