Johannesburg, South Africa, November 22nd, 2023, Chainwire
VALR, Africa’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has launched perpetual futures trading, featuring the world’s first Bitcoin and USDT perpetual futures paired against the South African Rand.
With the introduction of the BTC/ZAR and USDT/ZAR perpetual pairs, VALR has also listed the BTC/USDT perpetual future, offering an alternative to the likes of Binance, ByBit and Kraken.
Unlike their counterpart in traditional finance, perpetual futures have no expiry date, allow for more sophisticated risk-management strategies, and have become the most traded crypto- related instrument, accounting for over 75% of global crypto trading volumes.
VALR will initially allow up to 5x leverage across all perpetual markets, providing increased capital efficiency for traders.
“We’ve built what we believe is the most seamless futures product in the entire industry. Our customers can trade across spot, spot margin and perpetual futures markets, all from a single account, utilizing a single source of collateral. Trading perpetuals has never been so smooth,” said Gianluca Sacco, VALR’s Chief Operating Officer.
The introduction of perpetual futures on VALR follows the successful launch of spot margin trading as well as the crypto exchange’s recent partnership with Visa, the world’s largest payment network. VALR also received approval to offer crypto services in Europe and is actively pursuing licenses in Mauritius and Dubai, having received initial approval from VARA, Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.
Farzam Ehsani, VALR Co-Founder and CEO, added, “We have already received feedback from our institutional customers that what we’ve built puts VALR in a strong position to compete as one of the up-and-coming global exchanges. This is testament to the incredible amount of effort and dedication that our entire team has put into building this world-class product.”
For the initial phase, perpetual futures trading will be exclusively available on VALR.com, with mobile app support coming soon.
VALR, established in 2018 has already processed over $10 billion in trading volume and secured $55 million in equity funding. It serves over half a million retail customers and over 900 corporate and institutional clients. Its investors include several prominent global names such as Coinbase Ventures, Pantera Capital and Avon Ventures, a venture capital fund affiliated with the parent company of Fidelity Investments.
Futures trading services are provided by a VALR Group entity, VALR DAM Proprietary Limited, as a juristic representative of Prime Asset Managers (Pty) Ltd (an authorised financial services provider in South Africa registered under the FAIS Act, 37 of 2002 under FSP number: 33933).
About VALR
VALR is a prominent digital asset exchange headquartered in South Africa, empowering individuals and institutions to effortlessly and securely trade, store, and stake a variety of crypto assets. Since its establishment in 2018, VALR has gained widespread recognition for its extensive range of cryptocurrencies, competitive trading fees, and user- friendly platform. VALR’s mission is to help build a financial system that recognises the oneness of humanity. To discover more about VALR and its offerings, visit www.valr.com or follow us on Twitter and Instagram @VALRdotcom.