In a remarkable turn of events, Brett Harrison, the former president of the now-defunct FTX US exchange, has successfully secured $35 million in funding for his new venture, Architect Financial Technologies. This substantial capital injection signals a resurgence of investor confidence in the digital asset space, particularly in crypto-linked derivatives infrastructure, despite the recent turmoil caused by the FTX collapse.
Harrison's Architect Financial Technologies is developing an institutional trading platform, "AX", that will span derivatives, equities, futures, and digital assets. The platform will focus on perpetual futures contracts tied to traditional assets like stocks, commodities, and foreign currencies. Perpetual futures, or "perps," gained popularity in the crypto markets through platforms like BitMEX and, later, FTX.
The funding round was led by Miami International Holdings and Tioga Capital, with participation from prominent investors such as ARK Investment, Galaxy, and VanEck. The funding values the company at $187 million. This new capital follows a previous $12 million funding round in 2024, which was supported by Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, SALT Fund, and other investors.
Architect has already received regulatory approval in Bermuda to offer its perpetual futures contracts. However, perpetual futures on traditional assets have not yet received approval in the United States. The platform is explicitly designed for professional and institutional traders, offering features like algorithmic trading capabilities, advanced risk management tools, and multi-asset derivatives support. AX allows institutional traders outside the U.S. to trade non-expiring derivatives linked to equities and currencies, without including crypto assets.
Harrison aims to bridge the gap between crypto derivatives infrastructure and traditional markets, bringing the efficiency of crypto markets to regulated finance. The company plans to expand its operations beyond Bermuda into other markets, including Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
The derivatives market is a massive segment of the global financial landscape. The notional value of outstanding contracts in over-the-counter and exchange-traded derivatives markets is estimated to be in the hundreds of trillions of dollars, dwarfing world economic output. As S&P Global noted in a February report, liquidity remains a key challenge in the derivatives market.
The demand for these products is growing, as they provide synthetic exposure to macroeconomic data, commodities, and other off-chain assets, allowing traders to hedge risks or express positions without direct custody of the underlying assets. Coinbase Ventures identified real-world-asset perpetuals as a key area of interest for 2026.
