CFTC Clears Perpetual Futures on Individual Stocks for US Exchanges, No Launch Date Set

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Tuesday, Nov. 3, that perpetual futures contracts tied to individual stocks can begin trading on US-regulated exchanges. It is the first time such products have been allowed on American venues.

CFTC Chairman Michael Selig, in a statement, called the contracts "Equity Perps." He said they were deemed approved under Commission Regulation 40.3 as security futures products, a category created by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.

That puts them under the Commodity Exchange Act, federal securities law, and the rules of both the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

What the approval does and does not do

The statement names no exchange, lists no contracts and sets no launch date. Those details are expected to come from the exchanges themselves.

To list the products, an exchange needs a CFTC designated contract market registration and a notice registration with the SEC as a national securities exchange for security futures.

Perpetual futures have no expiration date. Instead of settling on a fixed day, longs and shorts swap periodic funding payments that keep the contract price near the underlying price. Holders get price exposure without owning the shares, so there are no voting rights or direct dividends.

The product has been a staple of crypto trading, mostly on offshore and decentralized platforms. DeFiLlama data cited by CoinDesk shows perpetual contracts logged more than $630 billion in trading volume over the past month.

The regulator's case

Selig framed the move as a way to bring trading home. "I believe that bringing these types of innovative products into our regulated 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," he said.

He also leaned on a March 11 memorandum of understanding between the CFTC and SEC, and repeated SEC Chairman Paul Atkins's description of security futures as stranded in a regulatory "no man's land" because the agencies had not harmonized their rules.

How we got here

The CFTC approved the first US-listed bitcoin perpetual, Kalshi's BTCPERP, on May 29. Kalshi added gold and silver perpetuals in September. Selig described Tuesday's decision as an extension of the May action from digital commodities into traditional securities.

Kalshi's September filing covers 58 contracts linked to major US stocks and exchange-traded funds, including Apple, Tesla, Nvidia, Microsoft and Alibaba, according to Blockonomi's reading of the filing. Kalshi requires collateral of at least 15.5% of a contract's market value, which lets traders control positions several times their deposit.

Coinbase Derivatives has proposed hourly funding payments capped at 0.10%.

On Oct. 29, Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, said it would seek regulatory approval for retail-focused perpetual markets with Trade[XYZ], covering crypto, stocks, indexes, commodities and currencies. ICE is taking a minority stake and has not disclosed the amount or a launch date. The Hyperliquid token HYPE rose about 20% on the news.

Cointelegraph reported that President Donald Trump said on Aug. 19 that Selig was working to bring Hyperliquid into the US in a fully compliant and legal way.

The objections

Not everyone accepts the CFTC's legal reading. CME Group sued the agency in June over the Kalshi bitcoin approval, arguing that a contract built on exchanged funding payments is a swap under Dodd-Frank, not a future. That case is pending.

An equity version adds the SEC's jurisdiction to the mix, and Bitcoin Magazine noted it may draw a new set of objections from securities-side participants.

On risk, Better Markets warned on Nov. 2 that leverage magnifies losses during sharp declines. Securities policy director Benjamin Schiffrin said automatic liquidations can worsen the damage when prices fall quickly.

Extended hours add another wrinkle. Kalshi's contracts trade from Sunday evening through Friday afternoon, Eastern time, so prices can move when regular stock exchanges are closed. Chainlink's weekend stock pricing service already uses perpetual futures quotes to value tokenized collateral when stock markets shut, and Aave Horizon is adopting it.

What comes next

Nothing trades until an eligible exchange announces contracts and a start date. ICE's Trade[XYZ] plan still needs regulatory approval, and distribution through ICE's joint venture with OKX is pending separate approvals.

The open question is the CME lawsuit. If a court sides with CME that funding-payment contracts are swaps, the legal footing for the whole perpetual category, including the new equity contracts, would be in doubt.