Stock Perps Go Mainstream: CFTC Opens the Door, Wall Street Slams It Shut

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has approved the first U.S. listings of perpetual futures tied to individual stocks, allowing the crypto-derived instruments to begin trading on designated contract markets with Securities and Exchange Commission approval to operate as notice-registered national securities exchanges and offer security futures products. The announcement extends the CFTC’s earlier clearance of Bitcoin perpetual futures for Kalshi to traditional equities.

Equity perpetual futures track an underlying asset’s price without an expiration date, allowing traders to maintain leveraged positions while meeting margin and funding requirements. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said the decision builds on the regulator’s approval of regulated crypto perps in the U.S. and continues the agency’s effort to bring offshore derivative products onshore. “In my inaugural remarks, I directed the CFTC to use the tools at its disposal to onshore perpetual derivative products so that they can flourish in the U.S., subject to appropriate safeguards,” Selig said.

The products were deemed approved as security futures products under CFTC Regulation 40.3 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, placing them under joint CFTC and SEC oversight. Bringing them into regulated U.S. markets “ensures that American investors and traders can access these products within the protections of the CFTC’s proven regulatory framework, rather than being forced to turn to offshore, and often unregulated, venues,” Selig said. The CFTC did not identify the exchanges that will launch the contracts or provide a timeline for trading.

Seven entities currently hold both required statuses: Cboe, CME, Coinbase, Kalshi, Bitnomial, Nadex, and ICE Futures U.S. Five filed within a single 30-day window in September. Kalshi has a filing covering 56 to 58 names and a launch expected within days, while Coinbase has filed to list contracts tied to Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia. The filings followed the CFTC’s May approval of Bitcoin perpetual futures for Kalshi and separate regulatory relief allowing Coinbase to provide access to certain cryptocurrency perpetual futures listed on an affiliated foreign exchange.

The approval drew immediate legal opposition. The Capital Markets Alliance filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York naming Cboe, Citadel Securities, and the Healthy Markets Association among its members, while the American Securities Association separately argued that Congress barred selling security-based swaps to retail investors. A CFTC spokesman called the suit “troubling,” adding that “our markets should be governed by law, not litigation campaigns intended to block innovation.” CME Group’s Chicago Mercantile Exchange had also sued the CFTC in June over its approval of cryptocurrency perpetual futures, arguing that the contracts should be regulated as swaps rather than futures; the regulator moved to dismiss that case in September.

Selig credited a memorandum of understanding signed by the CFTC and SEC in March for ending a jurisdictional “no man’s land” for the products. The announcement also came nearly three months after President Donald Trump said the CFTC was working to bring Hyperliquid, a decentralized crypto exchange best known for its perpetual futures trading, into the U.S. in a “fully compliant and legal fashion” during an Aug. 19 White House event. At the time, neither the CFTC nor Hyperliquid had announced a formal plan for bringing the platform to U.S. markets, and the CFTC had published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on Monday seeking public input before formal rules are drafted following the collapse of the Clarity Act.