Technical Diving: Why SGX is Plunging into the Crypto Derivatives Pool

"If you go underwater and you expect to see certain things, you’ve got it wrong," Poirot, a GUE certified Tech 1 diver, told Sandmark. "You need to be underwater and be able to free up your mind and be open to look at what basically is offered to you."

When Poirot goes on a technical dive, he does it with no viewing checklist, no camera and with an open mind.

There are parallels to the day job of the French native, who led SGX to a milestone on 24 Nov 2025 as the first traditional, regulated Asian exchange of its scale to offer perpetual futures on Bitcoin and Ether. While other regulated venues provide only dated futures, Poirot’s team focused on the 'perp', a product native to the crypto world but now housed in traditional infrastructure.

Plumbing and price formation

The launch was a defining moment for Asian digital asset markets. Open interest in SGX’s contracts has been growing as more participants use them for hedging, even as global open interest has fallen sharply elsewhere. SGX’s crypto futures average daily volumes sit between $25-35mn, with cumulative volume topping $2bn in early 2026.

Unlike native crypto platforms which are vertically integrated one-stop shops, SGX runs a three-tier structure with its trading engine, clearing members and their end clients.

"We probably have around a quarter of our capability connected… the rest actually will be unlocked in 2026," Poirot said. Working with the current environment means bringing onboard all of SGX’s stakeholders as a single group. "We’re bringing a new asset class across all our client members’ community. That means keeping the same infrastructure."

The race for Asia’s fixing

Poirot, who spent 16 years in Hong Kong at firms such as Nomura and Bank of America, noted that the launch of US spot Bitcoin ETFs in 2024 offered a clear signal. "We could see who from Asia was trading a US-listed spot ETF. It gave us a confirmation that there was a definite, strong institutional demand for a regulated product, but there was nothing in the derivatives space."

With the 24/7 nature of digital assets, Asian institutions often face exposure to market-impacting news while they are asleep. Pensions and sovereign wealth funds sought a regulated provider to hedge these risks. SGX, with a market capitalization of approximately $15.4bn, now sees competitors like the CME Group and Hong Kong regulators jumping into the same pool.

The perpetual advantage

The concept of a 'perpetual' contract, first proposed by Nobel winner Robert Shiller in 1992, allows for trading without expiry dates. Instead, a 'funding rate' tethers the contract price to the spot price every eight hours. According to a Jan 2026 report by CryptoQuant, perpetual futures activity in 2025 jumped 29% year-on-year to $61.7tn.

While Binance leads the pack with 42% of global volume, regulated venues such as SGX are carving out a specific niche for institutional participants who require the familiarity of traditional market infrastructure.

"My job at SGX is to connect the cold trading engine to the market," Poirot says. "The magic is when people find the value in exchanging their risk at a given point of time, at the right price."