GPU rental prices are super volatile but there's no
derivatives market to hedge. I built a perpetual futures platform to see what
this could look like.
The idea is airlines hedge jet fuel, starbucks hedges coffee beans - as GPU
compute becomes critical infrastructure the same hedging tools should exist.
Not sure if anyone actually needs this but it was interesting to build.
How it works:
- Pulls live H200 spot prices from Vast.ai every 15s into a tradeable index
- Full perp mechanics: funding rates, mark price calc, real-time P&L
- Event-driven Rust backend with supervisor pattern and circuit breakers
- Next.js frontend with TradingView charts, real-time WebSocket updates
What's real vs simulated:
- Real: Index construction, funding rate engine, forward curve, state persistence
- Simulated: Order book depth and trade matching (its a single-client demo)
The backend is the part I'm most proud of - isolated tasks coordinated by a
supervisor, each has it's own state machine so if one component fails it doesn't
take down the others. Tried to build it with production patterns in mind even
though its just a demo.
Also made a 15-page derivatives pricing doc that covers the economic model and
hedging scenarios. Basically: rental prices = f(CAPEX, utilization, depreciation)
so futures pricing reveals market expectations about GPU supply/demand.
GitHub: https://github.com/zacharyfrederick/compex
Would love feedback on the architecture or if the market mechanics actually
make sense. First time building something like this.