How a compute future actually behaves, what you can spend, when credits are delivered, and how to exit early.
What is a compute futures contract, exactly?
It's a forward contract for FPGA compute capacity. You commit capital today for a fixed term, 1, 3, or 5 years, with delivery in the United States. Your contract value compounds annually at the stated rate:
contract value at year t = principal x (1 + rate)^t.
Use any portion of the value as compute against the FPGA cloud catalog at any time. At each strike date the contract auto-rolls, with whatever value remains becoming the new principal of the next series. International jurisdictions are on the expansion roadmap.
Why is this a futures contract and not a bond?
A bond returns cash principal. A future delivers a commodity. AF Cred Compute Futures deliver FPGA compute capacity at the strike date, not cash. Your principal is converted to a non-refundable claim on compute. The closest everyday parallel is a gift card: you pay cash, you get store credit, you can't take the cash back. The twist is that this gift card compounds while you hold it.
When can I actually use the compute?
Any time during the term. Your contract has a current value that compounds at the contract rate every year. At any moment, you can use any portion of that current value against the FPGA cloud catalog: $0.20 per million DNS queries, $0.875 per million HTTPS, the full PaaS stack at AWS-parity pricing.
If you use the full contract value during the term, nothing rolls forward at strike. If you use less than what your position grows to, the remainder rolls into the next series as new principal. The $1M / $100K case grows the position to $2.02M over 10 years even with $1M of compute consumed.
What does $1M committed actually look like over 10 years?
A worked example. Commit $1,000,000 today on a 5-year contract at 15%. Use $100,000 of compute per year (a focused team's annual cloud spend). Auto-roll at every strike date.
Year 1: position = $1,050,000 ($150K growth, $100K used)
Year 2: $1,107,500
Year 4: $1,249,669
Year 5: $1,337,119
Year 6: $1,437,687
Year 8: $1,686,341
Year 10: $2,015,186
Total compute consumed over 10 years: $1,000,000. Position at year 10: $2.02M. Effective multiple on the original commitment: 2.02x while still consuming $1M of compute. The same $1M and same $100K usage, on rolling 1-year contracts at 10%, leaves the position at $1M forever (interest exactly covers usage, no excess to compound).
How does my contract value grow during the term?
Annual compounding at the contract rate. At any moment t years after issuance, your contract value is principal × (1 + rate)^t. On a $1M, 5-year, 15% contract held passively (no usage):
Year 1: $1,150,000
Year 2: $1,322,500
Year 3: $1,520,875
Year 4: $1,749,006
Year 5 (strike): $2,011,357
You can use any portion of the current value at any time. Anything unused at strike rolls forward as new principal in the next series.
What's the difference between "current value" and "strike value"?
Current value is what your contract is worth right now. It compounds annually at the contract rate.
Strike value is what the contract will be worth at the strike date if you use no compute during the term. It is the upper bound, and it is what auto-rolls into the next series if you hold passively.
On a 5-year, 15% contract for $10K, your contract is worth $10,179 on day 47 (a few weeks of growth). At strike (year 5) it has grown to $20,114. The difference is just where you are on the growth curve.
How do I exit before maturity? Can I get cash back?
The only path to cash is selling all or a fraction of your contracts on the Exchange to other holders. The platform never returns principal as cash; at strike date, the remaining principal auto-rolls into the next series of the same jurisdiction and term.
On the Exchange, contracts trade at a discount or premium to face depending on time-to-maturity, accrued growth, and jurisdiction premium. Listings can be all or a fraction of your position; the buyer takes over the proportional position state, including the proportional contract value and the proportional unused compute allocation. Calendar spreads (same jurisdiction, different maturity) are live today. Cross-jurisdiction swaps will become first-class trading pairs as international jurisdictions go live.
Why are the rates 10%, 12.5%, and 15%, and how is compounding calculated?
Longer commitment earns a higher rate. A 5-year contract represents a deeper commitment to the network, so the rate steps up: 1-year @ 10%, 3-year @ 12.5%, 5-year @ 15%, compounded annually.
The compounding formula is A = P × (1 + r)^t. For a $10,000 commitment at 15% over 5 years: $10,000 × 1.15^5 = $20,114 of compute available at strike. If you used nothing during the term, the full $20,114 rolls forward as the new principal of the next series, and the cycle repeats.
What does "jurisdiction" mean, and why does it matter?
Jurisdiction is where the FPGA capacity physically lives. Today, AF Cred delivers compute in the United States through Hurricane Electric POPs. Phase 1 deployment is also underway in the UAE, Switzerland, Monaco, and South Africa, with the remaining international jurisdictions on the expansion roadmap. Buildout is prioritized by demand from buyers who need data residency in specific regions for workloads in medical, finance, sovereign, and regulated sectors.
Once international jurisdictions are live, jurisdiction becomes the primary axis on the Exchange. Trading pairs like "US compute for Swiss compute" will let holders rotate their delivery location as workloads change, without unwinding the underlying yield commitment. That capability is coming as the regional buildout progresses.
Why is this a hedge? Who buys compute futures?
The same reason airlines buy oil futures. Airlines don't take delivery of crude oil, they hedge the cost of jet fuel, which is downstream of oil. When oil rises, the futures rise with it, offsetting the operational pain.
Compute is the new oil, energy plus scarcity plus accelerating demand. AI labs, SaaS infrastructure, fintechs running risk simulations, every downstream user of compute is exposed to compute price inflation. Compute futures are the hedge.
What does "forever rollover" mean? Can I hold this for ten years and beyond?
Yes, and that's the design. At every strike date, the future funds, AP is settled atomically against funded credits, and the net delivered (funded amount minus your AP) rolls forward as the new principal of the next series. Each cycle's principal is bigger than the last.
On a 5-year @ 15% contract held passively (no usage), principal multiplies by 2.01x every five years. Starting from $10K, that is $20,114 at year 5 and $40,456 at year 10. With actual usage the trajectory is dampened, but the same compounding mechanics apply on the unused portion. The product is a perpetual compounding instrument, not a one-shot.
If you spend during a cycle, the spend reduces the net delivered (and thus next cycle's principal), but doesn't break the rollover. Pay once. Use forever. The Exchange is the only offramp if you ever need cash.
Can I limit my own usage to preserve more for rollover?
Yes, opt-in time-weighted LTV cap. By default your full contract value is spendable. If you'd rather sacrifice some immediate compute to grow your rollover compounding faster, you can set a cap (e.g. 50% of contract value) on your position. Setting it to 0 puts the position into pure-rollover mode, zero usage, maximum carried into the next-cycle principal.
This is a discipline knob for institutional holders building long-term compute reserves. For active users it's irrelevant, most holders will run at full credit-line.
How does the catalog stay priced at parity?
The catalog is reviewed for parity against AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud on a quarterly cadence. When hyperscaler rates move, our catalog is updated to maintain parity at the lowest of the three. Significant rate changes may be applied between scheduled reviews.
Do you place large institutional tickets directly?
Yes, by invitation. Primary placements above standard ticket sizes clear through private single-price Dutch auctions, modeled on US Treasury issuance mechanics. Access is reserved for vetted institutional bidders. If your firm should be on the invitation list, contact
institutional@afcred.com.
How is the FPGA reserve audited?
The compute reserve is independently validated by Tolly Group, an IT infrastructure auditor with more than thirty-five years of practice. Report #223142 established the per-port performance baseline of 148.8 million DNS requests per second on the deployed FPGA hardware. Report #225148 (August 2025) extended that with pricing parity validation against AWS, Azure, and GCP at the lowest-of-three rates, and explicitly endorsed extrapolation of the parity logic across the broader catalog. Coverage figures are published daily, and the full reserve methodology is published as a transparency document.