Former FTX US president raises $35 million for traditional-asset perpetuals exchange: The Information
Quick Take
- AX is targeting non-U.S. institutional traders, operating under Bermuda regulation as U.S. approval for perpetual futures tied to traditional assets remains out of reach.
- The raise comes as investors increasingly focus on whether crypto-style derivatives can be applied to macro and real-world assets, even as regulators move cautiously.
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Former FTX US president Brett Harrison has raised $35 million for his startup Architect Financial Technologies, as the firm builds out a regulated exchange that applies crypto-market design to perpetual futures tied to traditional financial assets.
The funding round, first reported by The Information, was led by Miami International Holdings and Tioga Capital and values Architect at roughly $187 million, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Architect operates AX, a global perpetual futures exchange that allows institutional investors to trade non-expiring derivatives linked to assets such as equities and foreign exchange.
Unlike crypto-native venues that popularized perpetual futures, often referred to as "perps," AX does not list contracts linked to digital assets.
While perpetual futures remain unavailable to U.S. traders for now, interest in the product structure is growing beyond crypto-native markets.
In a recent 2026 investment outlook, Coinbase Ventures pointed to real-world-asset perpetuals as a key area of focus, arguing that demand is emerging for derivatives that offer synthetic exposure to macroeconomic data, commodities and other offchain assets.
The firm said those products could allow traders to hedge or express views on traditional markets without direct custody of the underlying assets — a use case that has so far been constrained by U.S. regulatory approval.
Harrison previously spent about 17 months as president of FTX US before stepping down in 2022, shortly ahead of the broader FTX collapse.
Since launching Architect, he has positioned AX as an attempt to adapt the efficiency of crypto market infrastructure to regulated global finance.
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