DRW’s Don Wilson Says Regulators Are Getting Perpetual Futures All Wrong

“There’s no reason to treat perpetuals as swaps simply because they don’t expire.” That’s the core of Don Wilson’s argument — and Wilson isn’t a crypto native making noise online, he’s the founder of DRW, one of the most established trading firms on Wall Street.

In a series of posts on X, Wilson laid out a case that regulators writing the rules for perpetual futures, crypto’s fastest-growing derivatives product, are fundamentally confused about what the instruments actually are. His argument: a perpetual future is simply a futures contract without an expiration date, nothing more exotic than that at its core.

Wilson pushed back specifically on the idea that high leverage, automatic deleveraging, and round-the-clock trading make perpetuals inherently different from traditional futures. Those features, he argued, reflect choices individual crypto exchanges made in how they implemented the product — they aren’t properties of the underlying contract itself, and shouldn’t be treated as if they were baked into what a perpetual future fundamentally is.

His central regulatory point is that oversight should focus on economic substance rather than legal labels. In his framing, the real innovation behind perpetuals isn’t the leverage or the trading hours — it’s that they eliminate the need for investors to keep rolling expiring contracts, which cuts transaction costs, reduces market impact, and lets positions track the front of the futures curve more closely than a traditional expiring contract can.

Wilson’s comments carry weight partly because of who’s making them: DRW is a decades-old market maker with deep roots in traditional futures markets, not a crypto-native firm with an obvious stake in looser rules. When someone with that background argues regulators are mislabeling a product, it’s a different kind of pressure than the industry’s usual self-interested lobbying.

Disclaimer: The content provided on this page is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile and involve significant risk of loss. Always do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decisions.