Backpack Opens Regulated Perpetuals Exchange in Europe After FTX EU Acquisition

Backpack Exchange, a global cryptocurrency trading platform, said Monday that its European division, Backpack EU, is officially live.

Operating out of Cyprus and licensed under the European Union’s MiFID II framework, the exchange is positioning itself as one of the first fully regulated venues in Europe to offer crypto derivatives, starting with perpetual futures.

“As far as I'm aware, it's just going to be us and Kraken” in Europe offering perpetual futures, Armani Ferrante, the CEO of Backpack, said in an interview with CoinDesk.

The debut follows Backpack’s acquisition of FTX EU earlier this year. In January, the FTX bankruptcy estate said the sale of FTX EU to Backpack was not authorized. Since then, the issue has been resolved and in April the exchange began distributing funds to former FTX EU customers, fulfilling their pledge to compensate users affected by the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire.

Backpack EU will provide users access to over 40 trading pairs with up to 10x leverage, the team said in a statement. The platform says it aims to give both retail and institutional traders a compliant gateway to advanced crypto trading products.

The rollout also highlights Backpack’s broader strategy of rebuilding trust in digital assets following a string of exchange failures.

“You give trust by doing good things every day over a long period of time. It's compounded," Ferrante said. "It takes time to build trust and a single day to lose it. And so I think, ultimately, our approach has always been to just try to get better every day and do the right thing at every step of the way.”

Part of that strategy is tapping into its proof-of-reserves system. Ferrante says the exchange publishes its validators' attestations daily using zero-knowledge proofs. “It should be the bar. You can do this every day, there's no reason why you can't,” he said.

Since 2024, the company said it has processed more than $160 billion in trading volume globally.

The team also plans to expand in other regions.

“We're working on the exact same thing here in Japan,” Ferrante said. “That's probably going to be our next place that we turn our eyes to with respect to licensing.”

Read more: New FTX EU Owner Backpack Initiates Customer Claims Process