Bitnomial, a crypto derivatives exchange, announced Tuesday it has raised $25 million in a funding round led by Ripple Labs, and also launched a perpetual futures trading platform in the United States.

The new platform, dubbed Botanical and currently in a closed beta, will give investors a way to trade perpetual futures, traditional futures and options, according to a statement.

"We are taking a bold step forward in our mission to provide a regulated and innovative trading experience by launching Botanical, which will provide an alternative to DEXes and VPN-based workarounds common in perpetual trading today," Bitnomial CEO Luke Hoersten said in a statement.

"Bitnomial's approach to bringing offshore trading models into the U.S. derivatives industry presents a significant market opportunity as they establish a compliant derivatives market for digital assets, such as XRP," Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in a statement.

The crypto derivatives firm will "leverage" Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin for the settlement of the perpetual futures, the statement said.

Tuesday's announcement follows Bitnomial's filing last week of a lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in which the startup alleged the agency had asserted the exchange’s yet-to-be-listed XRP Futures product violated federal securities laws. Whether XRP cryptocurrency is a financial security has been contested since the SEC accused Ripple in 2020 of raising $1.3 billion by selling the token as unregistered securities.

In 2020, Bitnomial was one of a few select U.S. businesses to gain approval from CFTC to manage a designated contracts market. That approval allowed Bitmonial to offer bitcoin futures and options.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2024 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.