Trump posts after hours, pushing on-chain perpetual futures toward the mainstream

Author: FintechFrank

Translation: Deep潮 TechFlow

Deep潮 Guide: This article captures an ongoing structural change: Trump’s habit of issuing market-moving statements after market hours, which coincides with the rise of 24/7 trading infrastructure. The S&P 500 proxy product on Hyperliquid experienced three major fluctuations over the same weekend triggered by Trump’s tweets. This is not coincidence but a preview of a new normal.

Full text below:

Trump calls himself the “Crypto President,” but in many ways, he is also the “Perpetual Contract President.”

It is well known that Trump doesn’t sleep, and he doesn’t hesitate to make market-impacting statements outside traditional trading hours. This is a peculiar but fitting backdrop: markets are evolving toward 24/7 trading, and we happen to have a president who is most aptly described as “spontaneous and sometimes chaotic.”

This weekend, this dynamic was fully on display.

Just days after S&P Global announced it would authorize trading of the S&P 500 on Hyperliquid, Trump stated after market close on Friday that the U.S. is “very close to achieving our goal.” The S&P 500 proxy product on Hyperliquid immediately rose.

Then, at 7:44 PM Eastern Time on Saturday, Trump escalated his threats, warning that if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened, he will strike Iran’s power facilities. The reaction was immediate: the S&P 500 on Hyperliquid dropped sharply.

It’s not over yet. Early Monday morning, Trump said that the U.S. and Iran had held talks to “fully and comprehensively resolve hostilities.” S&P 500 futures surged over 3.5%. Iran then denied Trump’s statement.

Perhaps Trump’s term isn’t about pushing the arrival of 24/7 markets, but it makes it impossible to ignore this trend anymore.

It remains unclear which perpetual contract product will dominate or whether perpetual contracts will become the primary structure for 24/7 markets. Futures are historically less familiar to U.S. retail investors than options, and whether traditional brokerages can successfully promote these products to their client base remains an open question. I remain skeptical. What works well in crypto markets may not translate cleanly to traditional finance users.

Nevertheless, growth is undeniable.

Open interest on perpetual contract DEX platforms has surged significantly. By January 2026, trading volume of perpetual contracts on DEXs reached $739 billion, with decentralized venues accounting for 10.2% of total crypto perpetual contract trading volume — up from just 2.0% two years earlier.

As shown in the chart by GSR Research’s Carlos Guzman and Slater Santer, since the HYPE TGE, news flow in both centralized and decentralized perpetual markets has accelerated:

This morning, new momentum emerged within the GSR ecosystem:

Katana acquired early decentralized exchange IDEX and launched Katana Perps, a platform aimed at unifying spot and derivatives trading on-chain. This is CEO Matthew Fisher’s first major move since taking office, reflecting a pursuit to control more of the trading stack and capture more economic value.

This move also highlights a broader shift: the environment for perpetual contracts is becoming increasingly favorable. Here is Katana’s statement:

“This move comes at a time when U.S. regulators are signaling clear approval for crypto perpetual contracts, marking a potential inflection point for on-chain derivatives. Meanwhile, trading activity continues to shift toward 24/7 markets, with price discovery increasingly happening in real-time rather than within fixed trading hours. As global markets adapt to this new reality, macro risks no longer wait for trading hours, reinforcing the importance of a continuous 24/7 trading environment.”