Moscow Exchange is preparing a breakthrough: perpetual futures on bitcoin and Ethereum will launch in September
The Moscow Exchange is taking a decisive step toward institutionalizing the crypto market. As early as September, the trading platform will launch its first perpetual contracts on digital assets — perpetual futures tied to Bitcoin and Ethereum indices. This is a landmark event for the entire Russian financial landscape, opening new horizons for qualified investors.
What exactly the platform is launching
According to my information, we are talking about two instruments that will become pioneers in the exchange's line of perpetual derivatives. Let me remind you that crypto futures contracts appeared on the Moscow Exchange back in the summer of 2025 — quarterly and monthly futures on BTC, ETH, Solana, Ripple, and Tron became available then. Now the platform is aiming to expand this lineup, and in the future, the number of underlying coins could be increased to ten.
Perpetual futures are an instrument without a fixed expiration date. Each such contract is automatically rolled over to the next trading day, which relieves the investor of the need to manually shift positions from one issue to another. This significantly simplifies capital management and reduces transaction costs.
Ambitious plans and infrastructure changes
But it won't stop at cryptocurrencies. In the near future, the exchange also plans to offer perpetual futures on approximately 20 foreign stocks — we are talking about the most liquid securities such as Amazon, AMD, Tesla, and Netflix. This is a logical continuation of the strategy to saturate the derivatives market.
Notably, this year 34 new instruments have already appeared on the platform's derivatives market, and about 30 more contracts are expected to be launched by the end of the year. This pace indicates a serious overhaul of the entire trading infrastructure.
Extended session and market oversight
Starting September 14, the main trading session will begin at 9:00 instead of 10:00 and will last ten hours. The changes will affect the stock, derivatives, currency markets, and the precious metals market. The extra hour is explained by requests from investors, especially those from Siberia and the Far East, for whom an earlier start creates a convenient window for trades.
In parallel, the exchange is strengthening control over trading. Earlier, an artificial intelligence-based system was implemented to detect trades with signs of manipulation and insider trading. This tool takes on the processing of hundreds of thousands of transactions, which becomes critically important as the lineup expands and the trading day lengthens.
My view: The launch of perpetual futures on crypto indices is not just another product, but a signal that the Russian derivatives market is catching up with global trends. Given the growing interest of institutional investors in digital assets, this step could become a catalyst for an influx of new capital. However, it is worth closely monitoring the liquidity of the first contracts — it is precisely this that will determine how successful this experiment turns out to be.