HTX Puts 50,000 USDT Behind Its US Stock Futures Push

HTX, the global crypto exchange formerly known as Huobi, opened a U.S. Stock Futures TradFi Trading Contest on June 1, 2026, with a 50,000 USDT prize pool on offer through June 11. The promotion lets users trade USDT-margined perpetual futures tied to NVIDIA, Tesla, Alphabet and the S&P 500 around the clock, no brokerage account required, settled entirely in a dollar-pegged stablecoin.

Underneath the giveaway is a synthetic, leveraged bet on Wall Street prices, pitched to a mostly non-US retail crowd. HTX is one of more than a dozen exchanges now selling some version of it, and regulators in Europe and the United States spent the first half of 2026 deciding how to police the product.

The Contest Pays Out 50,000 USDT in Ten Days

The mechanics are straightforward, and built to drive volume. The event runs until June 11 at 12:00 UTC. The designated pairs are USDT-M perpetual futures (USDT-margined contracts that never expire) on a short list of headline assets: NVDA, TSLAX, MSTRX, GOOGL, INTCX, the SPX500 index, plus gold, silver and crude oil. USDT here is Tether, a stablecoin pegged roughly one-to-one to the US dollar, so every position and payout is denominated in dollars without a dollar bank account ever touching the trade.

The bulk of the money, 47,000 USDT, goes to a leaderboard. Any user who racks up at least 10,000 USDT in cumulative trading volume on the designated pairs qualifies, and the top three by volume take fixed cash. A separate 3,000 USDT pot is reserved for newcomers, paid out 3 USDT at a time on a first-come basis. The full terms sit in the contest’s official prize-pool announcement.

HTX summed up the pitch in one line on its own channels: “Wall Street has closing hours, but on Huobi HTX, we never close.” That sentence is the whole product strategy.

How a Stock Perpetual Future Works

A perpetual future is a derivative that tracks an asset’s price but never settles or expires. To stop it drifting from the real market, exchanges run a funding-rate mechanism, usually every eight hours: when the contract trades above the underlying price, longs pay shorts, and when it trades below, shorts pay longs. You can hold the position for an hour or a year, and you can lever it up in either direction.

What you do not get is the stock. HTX has confirmed these are synthetic price-tracking contracts, and that holders receive no ownership, no dividends and no voting rights. You are wagering on where NVIDIA or Tesla trades, with no claim on the company behind the ticker. That changes the risk profile in ways the leaderboard does not advertise.

• No share, no custody. There is no certificate, no broker statement, no shareholder claim if anything goes wrong with the issuer.
• No dividends or votes. Corporate payouts and shareholder rights pass you by entirely.
• Leverage cuts both ways. Margin amplifies gains and losses, and a sharp move can liquidate the position before you react.
• Funding is a running cost. Those eight-hour payments quietly add up for anyone holding through a trend.
• Prices move when Nasdaq is shut. A 24/7 contract can gap hard on weekend news with no underlying market open to anchor it.

The Equity-Perps Race HTX Just Joined

This is where the contest stops being a marketing footnote. Putting Wall Street assets on crypto rails is the defining exchange product story of 2026, and HTX is a late arrival to a crowded field.

Kraken Set the Benchmark

The race kicked off in mid-2025, when Kraken and Bybit listed tokenized US equities within hours of each other under the xStocks brand, built with the Swiss issuer Backed Finance. xStocks has since cleared more than $25 billion in trades, according to Kraken’s tally of xStocks transaction volume, and holds the dominant share of tokenized equities by unique holders. Robinhood pushed more than 200 tokenized stocks to EU users at a one-euro minimum, KuCoin and Bitget bolted on their own equity tokens, and MEXC went a step further with access to real US shares.

The Move From Tokens to Perps

Tokenized stocks are one rail; the leveraged derivative is the faster-growing one. Kraken added perpetual futures on its tokenized stocks in February 2026, and venues such as Hyperliquid and Binance already run perps on oil, equity indices and single names. Crypto derivatives made up more than 70% of global crypto trading volume early in 2026, so the appetite for leverage is already there to redirect.

There has been a lot of talk about tokenized equities, and within the next two or three years, the volume of offshore traded equity perps will be greater than crypto perps.

That forecast came from Mike Harvey, head of franchise trading at the crypto firm Galaxy Digital, speaking on an industry panel in May. If he is even roughly right, HTX is buying a ticket to a market still in its first innings.

Why Regulators Are Circling These Contracts

The pushback is already on paper. In Europe, the markets watchdog ESMA’s reminder that perpetual futures fall under CFD rules told firms that these instruments generally meet the definition of a contract for difference (CFD, a leveraged bet on price moves with no ownership of the asset). ESMA is the European Securities and Markets Authority, the bloc’s top markets regulator. Where a perpetual is a CFD, it carries leverage caps, a mandatory risk warning, margin close-out and negative-balance protection, plus a ban on promotional incentives.

ESMA went further on marketing. It said mass-marketing campaigns, and offers that target all of an exchange’s clients or inexperienced investors, are inappropriate for this kind of product. A 50,000 USDT contest open to “both new and existing users” reads like the exact promotion the regulator described, even if HTX serves few EU customers directly.

The United States drew its own line. On January 28, 2026, three divisions of the Securities and Exchange Commission issued the SEC’s joint statement on tokenized securities, confirming that wrapping a stock in a token does not change its legal status and that holders of synthetic products face extra exposure to the issuer, including bankruptcy risk a real shareholder would never carry. HTX blocks US-based traders, which keeps it outside that perimeter, for now.

HTX Is Promoting This While Under UK Sanctions

One detail the press release leaves out matters for anyone weighing the trade. On May 26, Britain sanctioned HTX, placing the exchange on a list of 18 entities tied to a Kremlin-linked money network, as covered in our report on Britain’s sanctions on HTX over the Russia crypto network. The fallout has reached account holders, with some users describing frozen withdrawals and flagged wallets in our follow-up on HTX user asset freezes after the UK sanctions.

That backdrop sits awkwardly against a glossy contest, because the platform running it is large and now politically exposed at the same time.

• 59 million+ registered users as of the first quarter of 2026
• ~$100 billion in futures volume in April alone, on the exchange’s own numbers
• 22+ TradFi assets added in the first quarter as HTX built out the section
• 18 entities named in the UK’s May sanctions list, HTX among them

The contest closes on June 11 and the prize money is real. The questions that outlast it, about whether you own anything, what regulators will allow, and how a sanctioned exchange holds your collateral, do not close with it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can US residents join the HTX stock futures contest?

No. HTX restricts US-based traders from its platform, so the contest is not open to them. The exchange’s largest user bases are in Russia, Brazil, Ukraine and India, which is part of why a US-equity product can be marketed without triggering direct SEC oversight.

Do you own Tesla or NVIDIA shares when you trade these contracts?

No. These are USDT-margined perpetual futures, purely synthetic instruments that track the share price. You receive no equity, no dividends and no voting rights, and the contract holds you to an eight-hour funding payment whenever it drifts from the underlying market.

How much trading do you need to win a prize?

The main leaderboard requires 10,000 USDT in cumulative volume on designated pairs to qualify. New users have a separate track: trade at least 500 USDT in volume and keep a position of 100 USDT or more for at least two days to claim a 3 USDT reward, paid first-come, first-served.

What leverage is on offer, and is it capped?

HTX has not published a leverage figure for these specific contracts. For comparison, some venues offer up to 50x on stock perpetuals, while EU rules force CFD-style leverage far lower, typically 5x or less on single-stock exposure, with mandatory negative-balance protection.

Is HTX safe to use right now?

That depends on your jurisdiction and risk tolerance. HTX has operated since 2013 and is one of the larger exchanges by volume, but it was placed under UK sanctions on May 26, 2026, and some users have reported frozen withdrawals since. Treat any contest participation as exposure to that compliance risk, not just market risk.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial, investment or legal advice. Trading perpetual futures and other crypto derivatives carries a high risk of loss, including the full amount of your collateral, and synthetic products expose you to issuer and counterparty risk. Consult a qualified financial professional before trading. All figures are accurate as of publication on June 3, 2026.