Ondo Perps sees a “huge opportunity” to offer perpetual futures in the United States, although any US-based service would be structured differently from the platform it currently operates for customers outside the country.
Chief executive David Wells told The Block at an Ondo event in Seoul, South Korea, that the company believed it made sense to examine a potential expansion into the US market.
“Everybody’s looking at the U.S. because there are more opportunities now that are opening up that were just never possible,” Wells said. “I will say it’s going to be a different product than what we’ve seen. Perps in the U.S. are structured somewhat differently than the non-U.S. perps markets, and so we’ll see how that evolves.”
His comments come as US regulators and financial firms explore ways to allow perpetual futures to operate domestically. In August, President Donald Trump said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was “working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion”.
Kraken parent Payward has since announced plans to offer Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 perpetual markets to eligible US clients through the CFTC-regulated Bitnomial Exchange and NinjaTrader Clearing, subject to approval. The proposed arrangement would use a regulated wrapper rather than giving American traders direct access to Hyperliquid’s offshore application.
Coinbase has also filed plans to launch single-stock perpetual futures in the US.
Ondo Finance submitted letters earlier this month to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC arguing that perpetual contracts based on US equities fall within the existing category of security futures under the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.
Wells said on Tuesday that the contract itself and its market structure would probably remain similar in a US version, but that settlement and clearing would need to be adapted to comply with American regulations. He did not confirm that Ondo Perps would expand into the country, adding that the company had not gone “too far down the road” in its assessment.
“I think it will end up being sort of two different models of the U.S. versus the rest of the world,” Wells said.
Tokenised stocks as collateral
Ondo Perps launched in July this year as a Panama-based offshore venue for trading perpetual futures linked to tokenised US stocks, equity exchange-traded funds and commodities. The exchange operates around the clock, allowing traders to use USDC or eligible Ondo Stocks tokens as margin, with leverage of up to 20x on certain contracts.
Wells said its main distinction was the ability to use tokenised stocks as collateral. Most perpetual futures venues require stablecoins to be posted as margin, meaning that capital is tied up while supporting open positions. Ondo Perps allows users to post tokenised shares while remaining invested in the underlying asset.
On Monday, the platform said users could buy and sell 12 Ondo Stocks directly through the perps venue. That means traders using those tokens as collateral no longer need to manage positions across two platforms. Wells said the service would eventually cover all Ondo Stocks.
Since its private beta began, Ondo Perps has generated around $14 billion in trading volume and recently recorded open interest above $100 million, according to Wells. He said the figures reflected rising demand and broader interest in real-world asset products and tokenisation.
The trading volume includes retail click traders, institutional market-makers and hedgers, B2B2C channels and aggregators.
