Catenaa, Tuesday, September 15, 2026-Bybit has launched foreign-exchange perpetual contracts tracking three major currency pairs, allowing traders to gain continuous FX exposure using USDT as collateral without traditional contract expiry dates.
The cryptocurrency exchange introduced EURUSDUSDT, GBPUSDUSDT and USDJPYUSDT as the first contracts in its new FX Perpetuals category.
The products track the spot exchange rates of EUR/USD, GBP/USD and USD/JPY while settling in USDT.
Bybit said the contracts extend traditional foreign-exchange exposure into the crypto derivatives market, allowing users to trade currency movements from the same account used for digital assets.
The exchange is offering leverage of up to 100 times on the newly listed contracts, according to its product announcements.
Unlike conventional futures contracts, perpetual contracts have no predetermined expiration date.
They instead use funding mechanisms designed to keep the contract price aligned with the value of the underlying market.
Bybit said its FX products incorporate funding rates, dynamic leverage and its Unified Trading Account system.
The contracts are also available around the clock.
That creates an unusual feature compared with conventional foreign-exchange markets, which normally operate continuously during the working week but close for the weekend.
Bybit said continuous trading could allow users to respond to geopolitical events, central-bank developments and other macroeconomic news before traditional FX venues reopen.
The release did not detail how reference pricing is handled during periods when the underlying institutional foreign-exchange market is closed.
The launch expands Bybit’s TradFi Perpetuals business, which the exchange introduced in April.
That product range has grown to more than 200 instruments linked to equities, exchange-traded funds, commodities and pre-IPO companies, according to Bybit.
Adding foreign exchange brings another major traditional asset class into the same derivatives infrastructure.
The global FX market is considerably larger than cryptocurrency markets.
Average daily turnover in over-the-counter foreign exchange reached about $9.6 trillion in April 2025, according to the Bank for International Settlements survey cited by Bybit.
That was up 28% from about $7.5 trillion in 2022.
Daily turnover in interest-rate derivatives reached about $7.9 trillion during the same survey period.
EUR/USD and USD/JPY rank among the world’s most actively traded currency pairs.
GBP/USD is also a major institutional market and is closely followed around Bank of England monetary-policy decisions.
Bybit is positioning the contracts both as speculative instruments and as potential hedging tools.
A trader with exposure to a particular currency could use a perpetual contract to offset part of the effect of exchange-rate movements on a portfolio.
The ability to post crypto collateral may appeal to traders who already hold stablecoins but do not want to move funds into a conventional forex brokerage account.
USDT settlement also means traders do not need to hold euros, pounds or yen to gain exposure to movements in those currencies.
Instead, profits and losses are calculated through the stablecoin-denominated derivatives contract.
That structure also introduces risks that differ from ordinary spot FX trading.
Perpetual contracts are leveraged derivatives, meaning relatively small movements in the underlying currency pair can generate larger gains or losses.
Positions can be liquidated when available margin falls below required levels.
Funding payments can also affect returns when positions are held for extended periods.
Bybit said the contracts are intended for users who understand leveraged trading and advised customers to review individual contract specifications and risk disclosures.
The introduction of FX perpetuals reflects a wider effort among crypto exchanges to move beyond purely digital-asset markets.
Several platforms have begun offering derivatives linked to stocks, commodities and other traditional financial instruments while allowing users to maintain crypto-based collateral.
That model reduces the separation between crypto trading accounts and traditional market exposure.
For exchanges, it can also broaden activity beyond periods when cryptocurrency volatility is the main driver of trading demand.
Bybit’s launch comes as traders assess the future direction of global interest rates.
Currency markets can react sharply when central banks change borrowing costs or signal a different policy path.
Rate differences between economies influence demand for currencies because investors may move capital toward markets offering higher expected returns.
The euro, British pound, US dollar and Japanese yen are particularly sensitive to decisions by the European Central Bank, Bank of England, US Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan.
FX perpetual contracts allow crypto traders to take positions on those macroeconomic relationships without leaving a digital-asset derivatives platform.
Bybit also sees the products as part of a broader effort to combine traditional and digital markets within one trading environment.
The exchange has increasingly described that strategy as building a unified financial platform spanning crypto, traditional assets, payments and wealth products.
Its FX launch follows the expansion of equity and commodity-linked perpetual contracts and arrives alongside the company’s rollout of an AI assistant for trading and account management.
Together, the products indicate Bybit is moving toward an interface where users can access a wider range of financial markets without transferring capital between separate platforms.
Whether FX perpetuals attract sustained demand will depend partly on liquidity, spreads, funding rates and the accuracy with which contracts track underlying currency markets.
For traders, the appeal lies in maintaining crypto collateral while gaining exposure to some of the most heavily traded instruments in global finance.
For Bybit, the launch opens another route into traditional market derivatives as competition intensifies between crypto exchanges seeking to become broader financial trading platforms.
