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Dren Hima
Dren Hima is Head of Research at Coincub, leading research across digital asset regulation, licensing, market structure, tokenization and institutional adoption.
CFTC Clears Equity Perpetual Futures on US Exchanges
The CFTC said perpetual futures on individual stocks can trade on US-regulated exchanges, deeming them approved as security futures products. No exchanges, contracts or launch date were named.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the US derivatives regulator, said perpetual futures on individual stocks can begin trading on US-regulated exchanges for the first time.
- CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said the contracts, called “Equity Perps,” were deemed approved under Commission Regulation 40.3 as security futures products.
- Eligible exchanges must hold a CFTC designated contract market registration and a notice registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a national securities exchange for security futures.
- The statement names no exchange, lists no contracts and sets no launch date.
What the CFTC changed for equity perpetuals
Perpetual futures have no expiration date. Longs and shorts exchange periodic funding payments that keep the contract price tied to spot.
The contracts fall under the Commodity Exchange Act, federal securities law and the rulebooks of both agencies. Selig said bringing the products inside the agency’s framework means Americans no longer need to “turn to offshore, and often unregulated, venues.” Details on listings are expected to come from the designated contract markets themselves.
Legal basis and earlier CFTC perpetual approvals
Selig described the equity contracts as an extension of the CFTC’s May decision on bitcoin perpetuals, moving beyond digital commodities into traditional securities. The CFTC approved the first US-listed bitcoin perpetual, Kalshi’s BTCPERP, on May 29. Kalshi, a US prediction market, went live with it soon after. Kalshi added gold and silver perpetuals in September.
On the same day as the bitcoin approval, CFTC staff granted no-action relief that lets Coinbase Financial Markets route US clients into offshore perpetual and options liquidity.
The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 created a joint CFTC-SEC regime for security futures products. The two agencies signed a memorandum of understanding on March 11 to coordinate rulemaking and enforcement. Selig cited both, and repeated SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins’s description of security futures as stranded in a regulatory “no man’s land.” The agencies had also set out a joint crypto asset taxonomy earlier in the year.
Pending CME challenge and the Binance hack context
CME Group sued the CFTC in June over the Kalshi approval. It argues that a contract built on exchanged funding payments is a swap under Dodd-Frank, not a future. That case is pending. The equity version adds SEC jurisdiction and may draw objections from securities-side participants.
The approval came five days after an October 29 theft at Binance. TRM Labs and Chainalysis link the attackers to North Korea’s TraderTraitor group, which drained about $6.3 billion from Binance’s hot wallets in roughly 20 minutes. Binance reopened withdrawals on November 1 and said in its November 3 incident report that it had replenished 98% of affected tokens.
Selig told CNBC on October 30 that the hack “proves our exact point” about the CFTC’s October advance notice of rulemaking. It would create a voluntary federal registration path for crypto exchanges, with cybersecurity, proof-of-reserves and custody requirements. Selig has said the CFTC cannot make that registration mandatory without Congress.
