How is a perpetual futures contract inherently better than "old-school futures"? It is my understanding what cyrpto calls a perpetual future _isn't_ a future which makes them difficult to compare. I'm reading this comment as if perpetual futures are going to replace our current futures system somehow, and I don't see this possibility.

Don't we have 24/7 trading without the block chain? And low fees?

It appears all the many of these benefits you mention are for those just transacting in a crypto currency, and not for the other 99% of finance transacting in other currencies (and physical goods).