VALR, a cryptocurrency exchange based in South Africa, is launching Perps, a derivatives product offering more than 200 perpetual futures markets across multiple asset classes. The rollout uses Hyperliquid's infrastructure to power the trading environment.
Perpetual futures allow traders to take leveraged long or short positions without expiration dates, distinguishing them from standard futures contracts. The product expands VALR's existing spot trading capabilities into derivatives, a segment that has grown as institutional and retail traders seek exposure to price moves beyond simple buy-and-hold strategies.
Hyperliquid operates a decentralized liquidity network designed to aggregate order flow and settle trades on-chain. By integrating with VALR, the partnership extends Hyperliquid's reach into African markets and adds another venue to its growing ecosystem of exchanges and platforms using its infrastructure.
The 200-plus market count signals ambition to compete with centralized exchanges that dominate the perpetuals space. Major venues like Bybit, OKX, and Binance offer similar or larger product catalogs, so VALR's launch enters a crowded but active segment. Liquidity depth and execution speed will determine whether traders migrate flows from established platforms.
For VALR, the move diversifies revenue beyond trading fees on spot markets and positions the exchange to capture derivatives trading activity that might otherwise flow to competitors. For Hyperliquid, each new partner strengthens its pitch as a neutral infrastructure layer, though the centralized exchanges it competes with also continue to grow.