Panama City, Republic of Panama - February 18, 2026
Sai has formally launched Sai Perps, a new perpetuals trading platform designed to deliver a trading experience that replicates the speed and familiarity of centralized exchanges while ensuring full settlement onchain. The platform emphasizes gasless transactions to reduce friction for traders without foregoing the transparency and self-custody properties associated with onchain settlement.
Matthias Darblade, a Sai contributor, said: "Onchain markets shouldn't require traders to compromise between speed and self-custody." He added that Sai Perps is targeted at active traders who prefer a clean, centralized-exchange-like interface but also want the verifiability and settlement guarantees that onchain systems provide.
Product positioning and technical priorities
Sai markets itself on the premise that trading perpetuals need not force a trade-off between accessibility and onchain guarantees. The product messaging highlights a CEX-like user experience combined with onchain settlement, allowing trade data and final settlement to be verifiable onchain even as user interactions are designed to feel fast and intuitive.
The platform's technical focus centers on three areas called out by Sai: liquidity provisioning, risk systems, and oracle design. Sai says these components are being emphasized to support deeper and smoother markets and to enable more consistent execution and integrity across its order flow.
Sai also notes that the platform is intended to be approachable for both novice traders and experienced market participants by optimizing speed and clarity while retaining advanced trading functionality.
Competition and product differentiation
In outlining how Sai differs from other perpetual decentralized exchanges, the platform points to its combination of a streamlined trading interface with full onchain settlement, substantial investment in market infrastructure, and a roadmap that extends beyond crypto perps. Sai says it will pursue additional asset classes including stocks, commodities, and FX markets, and plans to introduce capital efficiency features such as Sai Savings, cross-chain deposits, and support for smart accounts to enable gasless trading.
Promotional campaign - Let’s Go Saicho
To accompany the launch, Sai unveiled a one-month onchain trading competition titled Let’s Go Saicho, which runs February 18 through March 19, 2026. The competition carries a total prize pool of $25,000 and is split into two two-week phases designed to reward different types of engagement.
- Phase 1 (Feb 18 - Mar 4): PNL Competition - $20,000 prize pool, 50 winners
- Phase 2 (Mar 5 - Mar 19): Be Early (first-come, first-serve) - $5,000 prize pool, 50 winners
All markets listed on Sai are eligible for both phases. Traders may take long or short positions on any listed pair using supported collateral, for example USDC and other assets such as stNIBI where available on Sai. Sai has published further competition details on its platform for participants seeking more information.
Roadmap and operational focus
Sai describes its near-term priorities as finalizing its core trading infrastructure and user experience, strengthening liquidity and risk systems to support smoother execution, and preparing the base for yield features that allow users to earn on idle collateral. Beyond those items, Sai has listed future initiatives: expanded markets that include stocks, commodities, and FX; Sai Savings to provide yield on deposits; cross-chain deposit flows; and smart accounts to facilitate gasless trading.
Contact
PR and media inquiries are directed to [email protected].