APEX now offers the following Bitcoin derivatives products: (1) APEX Bitcoin Perpetual Futures Contract; and (2) APEX Bitcoin Monthly Futures Contract.

As opposed to a traditional future contract which has an expiry date, a Perpetual Futures Contract is a futures contract without an expiry date. A trader may hold its position in a Perpetual Futures Contract for an indefinite period of time or until the position is closed.

The position will be rolled over at the daily settlement price at the end of each trading day. Unlike traditional futures contracts, Perpetual Futures Contracts are often traded at a price that is aligned to spot prices.

However, the prices of Perpetual Futures Contracts may deviate from spot market prices during extreme market conditions.

1. No expiry date
2. Prices are typically aligned to underlying spot prices
3. No physical delivery required

Perpetual Futures Contracts provide traders the ability to hold positions that auto-rollover on a daily basis, without an expiry date.

Since Perpetual Futures Contracts do not expire, exchanges use Funding Rates to ensure that futures prices and index prices converge on a regular basis.

Funding Rates are periodic payments made to or by traders who are long or short based on the difference between perpetual contract markets and spot prices. It will be imposed on all open positions at the end of each trading day.

When the Funding Rate is positive, it means that the price of APEX Bitcoin Perpetual Futures Contract is higher than the reference price. Hence, participants holding long positions will pay out to short positions.

When the Funding Rate is negative, it means that the APEX Bitcoin Perpetual Futures Contract is lower than the reference price. Hence, participants holding short positions will pay out to long positions.

For more information about the Funding Rate, please refer to here

APEX Bitcoin Perpetual Funding Fees paid or received = Open Position x Contract Multiplier x Compass Crypto Real Time Index Bitcoin x Funding Rate

For more information about the Funding Rate, please refer to here

APEX Bitcoin Monthly Futures Contract is a cash settled contract. It provides you with the opportunity to gain exposure to Bitcoin without the need to store Bitcoins.

APEX and APEX Clear are an “Approved Exchange” and “Approved Clearing House” regulated by MAS and all APEX products, including APEX Bitcoin Monthly Futures Contract are regulated under the Securities and Futures Act.

APEX has utilized a reputable Bitcoin benchmark, Compass Crypto Reference Index Bitcoin (CCRIBTC) for the settlement of the APEX Bitcoin Futures Contract. CCRIBTC is an index derived using the spot prices with a robust methodology.

The benchmark provider is Compass Financial Technologies (France). It is registered as a Benchmarks Administrator by the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) under the EU Benchmarks Regulation (EU BMR).

The index that APEX uses for settlement is Compass Crypto Reference Index Bitcoin (CCRIBTC).

The Final Settlement Prices of APEX Bitcoin Monthly Futures Contract is derived based on CCRIBTC.

The Compass Crypto Reference Index Bitcoin (CCRIBTC) is calculated based on the volume-weighted median of trade prices from the constituent exchanges in each hour.

For more detailed information, please refer to Compass Financial Technologies website.

APEX Bitcoin Monthly Futures is priced at one milliBitcoin (one-thousandth of Bitcoin) whereas CCRIBTC price is for one Bitcoin. E.g. APEX Bitcoin Monthly Futures will be traded around $40 when CCRIBTC price is at $40,000.

The Daily Settlement Price of a given day shall be the volume-weighted average of the traded prices of all transactions occurred during the last minute of the given day’s Day Session, or other methodology as set forth by the Clearing House. The Daily Settlement Price shall be rounded to the nearest US $0.005/milliBitcoin (0.001 Bitcoin).

A futures contract is a derivatives financial instrument, involving a buyer and a seller to agree to exchange an underlying asset at a predetermined future date for a set price. A futures contract can be physically settled or cash settled after the contract expiration.

For physically settled futures contract, the buyer is obligated to receive the underlying asset and the seller is obligated to deliver the same underlying asset after contract expiration.

For cash settled futures contract, the buyer and seller will settle the price difference by reference to the Final Settlement Price, derived using a benchmark price at contract expiration. No exchange of underlying asset is involved.

The concept of blockchain was popularized by a person (or group of people) using the name Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. In January 2009, Bitcoin came into existence and this was the first cryptocurrency being created. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency or a digital asset that uses cryptography to control its creation and management, rather than relying on central authorities. Amongst the cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin has the largest market cap.

Bitcoin Futures enable traders to hedge Bitcoin’s Future price by taking on the obligation to buy or sell Bitcoin at a predetermined future date for a set price.

Bitcoin Futures contract allows traders to gain exposure to Bitcoin without being exposed to the risks associated with holding the underlying cryptocurrency. This avoid the hassle of having a digital wallet and the risk of Bitcoin loss if the wallet is compromised. In addition, Bitcoin futures contract allows the creation of short position.

A digital wallet will not be required to trade APEX Bitcoin Futures Contracts because the contracts will be cash settled.

APEX does not accept direct account opening with clients. You can open account with our Members.

APEX currently offers APEX Bitcoin Monthly Futures Contract. APEX would expand the cryptocurrency product offering in the near future.

Currently there are more than 600 crypto exchanges globally, but most of these crypto exchanges are unregulated.

APEX is the third licensed derivatives exchange in Singapore with robust Clearing Members, market surveillance mechanism, margin requirement, default procedures and so on. As the central counterparty, all the transactions are cleared through the Asia Pacific Clearing House which reduces counterparty risks.

In May 2022, APEX launched its first crypto futures product with the plan to expand its product offering in cryptocurrency in the future. APEX aims to be the regulated cryptocurrency futures trading venue of your choice.

CCRIBTC does not have a real time index but CCRTBTC can serve as a reference price for real time index as it is using similar methodology and constituent exchanges in the index computation on every 15 seconds.

For more detailed information, please refer to Compass Financial Technologies website.

The calculation methodology for the Compass Crypto Real Time Index Bitcoin (CCRTBTC) is as below:

• CCRTBTC aggregates trades data from BTC/USD markets operated by the constituent exchanges.
• CCRTBTC computes the index every 15 seconds (using 15 seconds trade data).

For more detailed information, please refer to Compass Financial Technologies website.

The minimum price fluctuation is $0.005.

The quote currency is US dollar (USD).

There is no price limit.

It is on the last Friday of the contract month.

It is a price band that helps to prevents erroneous and/or unrealistic orders and in turn, mitigating the risk of sharp price movements in the market.

You can refer to more information here.

It is 10% up and down from the last traded price. If the last traded price is not available, it will be 10% up and down from the previous day’s daily settlement price.

The product code is in the format of BTCYYDD, where YY and DD denote the year and month of the contract respectively.

E.g. Contract BTC2210 means October 2022 contract that expires in the month of Oct.