Binance added crude oil and natural gas futures to its platform this week, a bid to capture trading volume from energy markets rattled by the US-Iran war and the ongoing threat to Strait of Hormuz shipping.
The exchange listed three perpetual contracts on April 1: CLUSDT for West Texas Intermediate crude, BZUSDT for Brent crude, and NATGASUSDT for natural gas. All three carry a maximum leverage of 100x and run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
According to Binance’s official announcement, each crude contract represents one barrel; the gas contract covers one MMBtu. Funding fees clear every four hours.
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Crude prices have been swinging hard since late February, when US and Israeli forces struck Iran under Operation Epic Fury, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and throwing Hormuz transit into uncertainty. Traditional commodity exchanges close on weekends; Binance does not.
Brent hit an intraday high of $119.50 on March 9 — its highest since June 2022. WTI settled above $100 for the first time since July 2022 on March 30, closing at $102.88, capping a month in which both benchmarks posted their biggest monthly gains on record — WTI up roughly 53%, Brent up roughly 42%.
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By April 1, prices retreated as Trump signaled he was open to ending the war even without a full Hormuz reopening, with WTI closing down 1.24%. Rystad Energy estimated nearly 17.8 million barrels per day of flows through the Strait have been disrupted, with close to 500 million barrels of total liquids lost so far.
Henry Hub natural gas has held around $3.80 per MMBtu domestically, though LNG disruptions through the Strait pushed European and Asian gas prices sharply higher; nat gas slipped to a five-week low on April 1 as warmer spring temperatures cut heating demand.
Binance ran a similar play in January — adding gold and silver perpetual contracts to enough volume to justify the next step — and took a competitive cue from Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange that built much of its business on oil-linked contracts and hit roughly $200.5 billion in one-month trading volume in early 2026, nearly triple its nearest rival. With roughly 39% of global centralized exchange volume and 300 million registered users, Binance is better positioned to scale the same product.
At 100x leverage, a 1% price move against a position wipes it out entirely — and 1% moves in this market happen on an OPEC statement, a weather forecast, or a single report out of the Strait. Binance’s own terms note that all margin balance may be liquidated in the event of adverse price movement, which right now is less a disclaimer than a live warning.
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