The Ledger Lab: Building the Market for Compute GPUs

​Compute futures are set to list October 5, pending CFTC approval, with more than one venue racing to open. Five days before that, the people building this market are in one room.

​Clément Salaün, CTO of Formance, owns the question under all of it: when are two GPU-hours the same thing?

​Mai Trinh, CEO of Internet Backyard, builds the rails where compute is metered, billed and settled.

​Brett Harrison, CEO of Architect, joins from the exchange side, where a US futures market for compute and AI commodities is being built.

​A futures contract can settle against a price index without touching a GPU. The physical market is harder: quotes from different clouds don't compare, and a one-year contract has no liquid exit. Surprisingly, money never fully solved this either. More than 100,000 people were locked out at Synapse because the books couldn't say whose money was where.

​You'll leave with:

• ​What's set to trade in October, and what can't yet

• ​What has to be true before two GPU-hours are interchangeable

• ​Why a balance has to record which one, not just how much

​Registrants get the replay and a one-page map of the market's layers. Built for compute providers, AI companies, the funds financing both, and anyone keeping books for something that isn't money.