Behind the blocks

AI compute is turning into a capital market. GPU-backed credit got there first. Open-weight inference is now creating the merchant flow that benchmarks, dealers, and hedgers need. Lenders were financing entire GPU fleets before any U.S.-regulated dated compute future began trading. Debt amortizes on schedule while rent and collateral value keep moving, turning the missing forward market into a balance-sheet problem. Open-weight models are moving more inference demand into third-party capacity markets, creating the transaction history a benchmark needs. Credit and physical capacity already trade; the missing layer is a term market that can transfer risk and still connect to a working cluster.