Bilateral is brittle
Every resale needs a new contract, a fresh credit decision, another payment setup, a separate SLA. As capacity changes hands, liability tangles.
[ The financial frontier for the AI economy ]
Compute has a price.
Now it has a market.
Liquid Compute is building the regulated exchange for compute — price discovery, clearing, and settlement for neoclouds, AI companies, and traders.
Capacity becomes transferable through a physical order book, with derivatives markets on top.
* PMEX Markets is pending designation as a DCM and registration as a DCO by the CFTC.
IndexLastChg
- LCI-A100-US$1.53down
- LCI-H100-US$2.69up
- LCI-H200-US$3.42up
- LCI-B200-US$5.01up
- LCI-B300-US$6.66up
USD per GPU-hour · continuous prints from the physical order book
Physical brokerage — liveIndex licensing — institutional counterpartiesCFTC — DCM / DCO applications pendingYC W25 · New York
[ 01 · The asset ]
Oil can be stored in a barrel. Compute cannot.
If a GPU sits idle this afternoon, that capacity evaporates forever. Its value depends on location, configuration, and workload — closer to power markets than to oil, and a direct proxy for access to intelligence.
Crude oil
StorableNow
+1 month
+1 year
Production can wait in a tank. Price carries into next month.
GPU hours
Perishable14:00
15:00
16:00
An unsold hour at 14:00 is gone at 15:00. The price evaporates with it.
No trusted price
The same GPU rents at three prices depending on how long you commit. The term structure exists — it just isn't standardized anywhere.
The buyer changed
Compute is no longer bought only by its end user. Neoclouds, brokers, and trading firms warehouse it, resell it, and arbitrage it.
Precedent — ICE in energy · CBOE in volatility · Kalshi in events: regulated venues accrued most of the value of the commoditization they enabled.
[ 02 · The market ]
The market stack for compute.
Every trade needs the same plumbing: a trusted price, a place to trade, a way to settle, and a way to finance it. Liquid Compute builds all four.
Data · Indices
Prices inVerifiable physical reference prices. Continuous index prints for the GPUs that actually move the market — from A100 to B300.
Exchange
TradeA physical order book for capacity. Standardized contracts replace bespoke bilateral deals, so positions change hands in one place.
Settlement
Clear & deliverClearing through a common framework. Delivery is verified, liability stops tangling, and credit is netted — the venue does the plumbing.
Credit
FinanceFinance against the forward curve. Term structure lets lenders underwrite cash flows and operators unlock working capital.
[ 02 · The market ]
One chip. Three prices. That’s a term structure.
The same GPU rents at three different prices today depending on how long you commit. That is not a broken market — it is a forward curve, and people have already started trading it.
[ 03 · The products ]
Three ways onto the market.
Every request starts the same way: tell us your side, your chip, your quantity, your start date and your tenor. The desk prices it and shows you what it does to your book.
Physical
Buy / Sell Capacity
Trade blocks of committed GPU capacity against verifiable reference prices — on the side that matches your book.
Operators locking forward revenue, buyers capping future cost, desks running tenor transformation.
- Side
- Buy or Sell
- Chip
- A100 · H100 · H200 · B200 · B300 · Other
- Quantity
- GPU-hours under contract
- Start
- Desired start date
- Tenor
- Duration in months
Cash-settled
Trade GPU Indices
Take a view on the price of compute — long or short — against the US indices Liquid Compute publishes, without touching hardware.
Relative-value traders, hedgers laying off residual risk, anyone expressing a view on a chip generation.
- Side
- Long or Short
- Index
- LCI-A100-US → LCI-B300-US
- Quantity
- Index-referenced hours
- Start
- Desired start date
- Tenor
- Duration in months
Credit
Finance Compute
Convert forecast revenue into contracted revenue, and finance against a residual the market can actually see.
Neoclouds lowering cost of capital, lessors bridging the lease/offtake gap, lenders advancing against hedged fleets.
- Structure
- Forward sale · hedge · residual protection
- Chip
- A100 · H100 · H200 · B200 · B300 · Other
- Reference
- Published index or physical print
- Start
- Desired start date
- Tenor
- Duration in months
On the book today
Supply
Neoclouds & datacenters
Lock in future utilization revenue, move idle capacity into a liquid book.
Demand
AI companies & enterprises
Hedge rising inference costs with standardized instruments.
Trade
Trading firms & market makers
Warehouse, resell, and arbitrage compute with a balance sheet.
Capital
Lenders & credit desks
Underwrite financing against forward prices and verifiable prints.
[ 04 · The mechanics ]
Tenor transformation. The first trade in every young market.
Blocks are trading right now: buy multi-year capacity, resell it shorter, run the book the way a desk runs any carry position. Standardized contracts are what turn an operator’s trade into a trade available to capital — exit by assignment instead of by rack relationships.
Trade pattern and levels per our research, Compute Is Already Trading — figures illustrative, not drawn to scale.
Lay off the tailCash-settled short against the index for months 13–36
36 months at $3.70
Multi-year capacity clears at a discount — financed operators are structural sellers of term.
Months 1–12 at $5.50
Shorter commitments clear higher. The first year is sold and the spread is locked.
$1.80 locked
Months 13–36 are the position: payment for holding re-let risk and obsolescence risk the short buyer refuses.
Short the index
A cash-settled short against the unsold tail converts the carry into a managed book instead of a bet.
[ How the hedge works ]
A contract that fixes a price for a future period.
Nobody delivers a GPU. Nothing about your operations changes. At the end of the period the agreed price is compared to the printed index and the difference settles in cash. You already hold the exposure — the hedge is how you put it down.
- S1Your exposureThe renewal you haven't priced, the utilization you haven't sold.
- S2Fix the levelA hedge struck at $4.40 for the period you need.
- S3The index printsLCI publishes continuously for the chip, for the whole period.
- S4Cash settles the differenceAgreed price vs printed index. No GPUs change hands.
LongHurt when prices fall
- Operators with unsold capacity — hours not yet under contract
- Lessors and owners at lease end — hardware value tracks the rental price
- Anyone whose offtake is shorter than their financing
Lock in a price you can sell at
ShortHurt when prices rise
- Enterprises and AI companies — renewal cost unknown, budget due today
- Buyers who cannot commit long — short contracts mean constant repricing
- Anyone growing into more compute — future cost base rises with the market
Lock in a price you can buy at
Case · An enterprise fixing what compute will cost
Your renewal is twelve months out and the budget is due now. You need 128 GPUs for a year — about 1.12 million GPU-hours.
| Where the market lands | Unhedged bill | Hedged at $4.40 |
|---|---|---|
| Falls to $3.80 | $4.26M | $4.93M |
| Flat at $4.40 | $4.93M | $4.93M |
| Rises 25% to $5.50 | $6.16M | $4.93M |
Your procurement is untouched: run your RFP, pick your provider. The hedge only fixes the level. No GPUs arrive — it settles in cash against a published index.
[ 05 · The proof ]
The record so far.
A $15M seed, pending CFTC applications, a live physical brokerage, and published indices to settle against.
$15MSeed round — Chemistry & Firstmark
YC W25Combinator batch, New York
5US indices published, A100 → B300
2CFTC applications pending — DCM & DCO
LivePhysical brokerage — blocks trading today
Backed by
Y Combinator
K8 Capital
Night Capital
TrueBridge- Brainchild Holdings
- UFO Holdings
Working with
Susquehanna
BGC Group
Wintermute
[ Before / after ]
Bilateral today. A market tomorrow.
| Aspect | Today · bilateral OTC | The venue |
|---|---|---|
| Opening a position | New contract, fresh negotiation, another counterparty review | Standardized contract — enter and exit by assignment |
| Credit | A fresh credit decision on every trade | One framework — clearing through the venue |
| Payments & settlement | Another payment setup, tangled chains of liability | Netted and settled by the market |
| Price discovery | Every price is private; the same GPU rents at three prices and nobody publishes why | Published reference indices, verifiable physical prints |
| Service levels | A separate SLA per deal, operational reach required | Delivery verified against defined performance metrics |
Participants keep their counterparties and their procurement. The venue replaces the plumbing, not the relationships.
[ Research & perspectives ]
Notes from operating the market.
Hedging Compute Prices
A short primer for anyone who buys, sells or finances compute — no derivatives experience assumed.
Compute Is Already Trading
The same GPU rents at three prices depending on commitment. That ordering is a term structure — and people have started trading it.
Investing in the Middle Market for Compute
Why profitable, high-utilisation operators still can't get financed below the hyperscale tier.
“Trading is not what happens after a market matures. Trading is how it matures.”
Stanley Lee · Chief Product Officer
The instruments are new. The trades are not.
[ 06 · Access ]
Asked before onboarding.
What does “pending DCM / DCO” mean?
PMEX Markets has pending applications before the CFTC for designation as a Designated Contract Market and registration as a Derivatives Clearing Organization — the same institutional-grade framework that governs traditional commodities. Regulatory outcomes are not guaranteed, and nothing on this page is an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any security or commodity interest.
What is actually traded?
Standardized contracts on AI infrastructure, both cash and physically settled, starting with compute. Before a futures market can launch, the industry must standardize exactly what is being delivered — which is why verifiable infrastructure, defined performance metrics, and credible physical reference prices come first.
What is an EFP market?
Exchange for Physical. Clearing transactions through a common framework lets any participant with a balance sheet take a position on compute without becoming a cloud operator, a credit underwriter, or an AI company.
Who can participate?
Trading firms, datacenters, cloud providers, lenders, and everyone else trading or financing capacity. The venue is onboarding now — request access and the team will be in touch.
Where do reference prices come from?
Index prints from the physical order book — continuous prints for the accelerators that actually move the market, from A100 to B300. The US indices Liquid Compute publishes are licensed today to institutional counterparties, and physical brokerage is live — blocks are trading now.
Does anyone deliver a GPU?
Physical capacity trades in the book; the cash-settled market needs no racks at all. A hedge fixes a price for a future period and settles in cash against the printed index — your procurement, your providers and your operations stay exactly as they are.
What does it take to start?
An ISDA with the counterparty, a licence for the index it settles against, and a view on how much of your exposure you want fixed. Most desks start with a slice rather than the whole book — which is the right instinct. Hedge the volume you are confident about; a hedge fixes price, not volume.
[ Now onboarding ]
Request access to the compute market.
- Trade against verifiable index prints, not rate cards.
- Standardized contracts instead of bespoke bilateral deals.
- Clearing and settlement handled by the venue.
Onboarding trading firms, datacenters, cloud providers and lenders now — tell the desk your side, chip, quantity, start date and tenor.