Crypto's Perps Go Mainstream: $30M Raised for Regulated US Exchange

For the crypto community, perpetual futures are synonymous with exchanges like Binance and Bybit, where $50B+ in open interest trades around the clock. Now, with a $30M fundraise, APEC is positioning itself as the regulated gateway for perps on traditional assets, backed by a political pedigree that could accelerate adoption. The move underscores how crypto-born financial products are penetrating Wall Street, even as regulators scramble to write the rules.

On July 10, 2026, news broke that Theodore Gillibrand, the 22-year-old son of New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, had raised $30 million at a $300 million valuation for his derivatives startup, American Perpetuals Exchange Corporation (APEC). The funding, led by elite venture capital firm Lux Capital, comes just as the younger Gillibrand graduated from Stanford University and as his mother remains one of the Senate's most active lawmakers on digital asset regulation. The timing and the family connection have ignited comparisons to the “Trump family game” — a phrase critics use to describe the perception that political families leverage their influence for private gain. Senator Gillibrand, a Democrat, has positioned herself as a champion of crypto oversight, co-authoring the GENIUS Act for stablecoins and serving as a lead negotiator on the comprehensive Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act. Now, her son is launching a business that, while not directly trading cryptocurrencies, is deeply entangled with the crypto world: perpetual futures, or “perps,” were developed and popularized by offshore crypto exchanges like BitMEX and Binance.

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On July 10, 2026, news broke that Theodore Gillibrand, the 22-year-old son of New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, had raised $30 million at a $300 million valuation for his derivatives startup, American Perpetuals Exchange Corporation (APEC).

APEC's core product is a perpetual futures contract on U.S. equities and stock indexes. Unlike traditional futures, perps do not have an expiration date; they use a funding rate mechanism to keep the contract price aligned with the underlying index. This innovation has become the dominant derivative in crypto, with open interest regularly exceeding $50 billion and daily volumes surpassing $100 billion. However, almost all of that trading occurs on unregulated or lightly regulated offshore platforms, raising concerns about market manipulation, investor protection, and systemic risk. APEC's vision is to bring these instruments into a fully regulated, institutional-grade American exchange. According to a June 4, 2026 memo to the SEC, APEC intends to seek Designated Contract Market (DCM) and Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) licenses, and it is requesting a special exemption to list single-stock perpetual futures under joint SEC-CFTC oversight.

The optics are delicate. Senator Gillibrand’s legislative agenda could directly shape the regulatory environment in which APEC will operate. While no allegations of wrongdoing have been made, and APEC is not a crypto-trading platform per se, the startup's fortunes are tied to the very regulatory frameworks that the senator is helping write. This has prompted ethics experts to note the parallels with controversies surrounding former President Trump's children, who pursued international business deals while their father was in office. The Democratic senator has long criticized such entanglements, and the current situation may undercut that moral high ground.

The market implications are significant. If APEC succeeds in obtaining a license, it would be the first regulated exchange to list equity perpetual futures in the United States. This could challenge incumbents like CME Group and ICE, which offer dated equity futures but not perpetuals. It could also attract a wave of institutional interest, as well as retail investors seeking leveraged exposure without the complexities of rolling over contracts. On the other hand, the SEC has historically been cautious about novel derivatives, especially those that resemble the leveraged exchange-traded products that have drawn scrutiny. The joint oversight model adds another layer of complexity, requiring coordination between the SEC and CFTC at a time when both agencies are under political pressure.