As the week draws to a close, commodity traders typically shift their focus from making money to managing risk, as they cannot adjust their positions until markets reopen on Sunday evening. However, the rise of perpetual futures contracts on crypto exchanges is changing this dynamic, allowing traders to hedge their bets and react to market-moving events over the weekend. This shift has significant implications for the oil market, where traders can now capture profits during periods of high volatility, rather than simply sitting on their positions.
While institutional traders have been slow to adopt this new paradigm, due in part to liquidity concerns and infrastructure limitations, the growth of perps trading is likely to continue, potentially leading to a broader shift towards 24/7 trading in traditional markets.