Stocks Go 24-7 in New Crypto Betting Markets as Perps Push Wall Street into a New Frontier

New crypto platforms are opening the door to nonstop equity speculation with up to 100X leverage. They are creating a parallel market for stocks that runs without brokers, closing bells or traditional guardrails.

A new class of trading products is taking shape inside crypto’s wilder corners, and the idea is simple enough to feel slightly unreal. Traders can now bet on the price of stocks and equity indexes at any hour of the day using perpetual swaps, which is a structure that never expires and runs on crypto collateral instead of brokerages or clearinghouses.

Perpetual swaps, or perps, shaped the last decade of crypto speculation, where traders chased moves on Bitcoin and Ethereum using leverage levels that would make a prime broker wince. Now developers are applying the same machinery to assets like the Nasdaq 100 (NDX), Tesla (TSLA), Coinbase (COIN), and more.

Platforms such as Hyperliquid already host contracts like the Nasdaq-linked XYZ100, which has seen more than $60 million in open interest. The model resembles fantasy sports for equities, only with real money, crypto collateral and nonstop price discovery.

Vest Labs CEO Justin Ma said crypto exchanges “are realizing that equities are much better tradable asset at least in the current economy.” He added that he wants to build “a venue for 24-7 price discovery for US companies.”

Even Wall Street players are circling the idea. Jane Street has backed Vest Labs, signaling that institutional curiosity is more active than many might think.

Traders Can Bet on Stocks Anytime Using Crypto

The mechanics echo what made perps dominant in crypto. Traders post USDC as collateral, open a long or short position and ride the move. A funding rate balances long versus short demand so the contract tracks the real asset.

Price oracles and market makers model movements when markets close. It is a fragile system, according to builders, but one that works well enough to keep these contracts liquid around the clock.

Darius Sit of QCP said perps were “uniquely suited for nascent, speculative crypto markets as the structure allowed for outsized leverage with an objective, fair and self regulating funding mechanism in continuous 24-7 markets.”

Some platforms pause trading when equities close. Others push forward. That difference creates real risk, especially during surprise macro news or weekend shocks.

Ostium co-founder Kaledora Fontana Kiernan-Linn warned that running all weekend can hit traders with unexpected losses. “You can get wicked out on the weekend of someone’s moves of a massive order,” she said.

Leverage Hunters Push Risk Higher

For many retail traders, this is the entire point. U.S. rules cap equity leverage at about three times. Perps on crypto rails can offer 10X, 50X, even 100X.

Tom Schmidt of Dragonfly said demand for leverage is rising and that traditional rules leave a massive gap. He noted that the DTCC limits stock margin to about 3X, even though traders clearly want more.

The products are not legal for U.S. users. They touch futures law, securities law and derivatives clearing rules at the same time. Galaxy Digital’s (GLXY) Michael Marcantonio said they form “the holy trinity of regulation.”

Still, regulators are slowly probing new ideas. The SEC and CFTC proposed a joint pilot for novel market structures in September. Coinbase already rolled out regulated Bitcoin and Ether perps for U.S. traders, hinting at how the pathway might eventually open.

Ryne Miller of Lowenstein Sandler said the SEC is taking a deliberate approach to finding a path for innovation in the U.S. and added that incoming CFTC chair Michael Selig may also look for ways in.

These markets are young, risky and still unregulated. They are also growing with the kind of energy that usually signals a bigger fight ahead, one between crypto’s appetite for nonstop speculation and Wall Street’s grip on how trading is supposed to work.

Investors can track the prices of their favorite cryptos on the TipRanks Cryptocurrency Center. Click on the image below to find out more.