The agency said Tuesday (Nov. 3) that equity perpetual futures can begin trading on CFTC-registered exchanges, Decrypt reported. The development gives regulated U.S. markets a route to offer leveraged stock exposure through contracts without expiration dates, a structure long associated with offshore crypto platforms.
The move also illustrates how cooperation between the CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is helping accommodate products that cross the traditional boundaries between securities and derivatives regulation. The contracts come under both agencies’ oversights, rather than occupying the regulatory “no man’s land” that SEC Chairman Paul Atkins has described.
Perpetual futures track an underlying asset’s price but do not expire. Traders can maintain leveraged positions indefinitely, provided they meet applicable margin and funding requirements. That differs from conventional futures, which have expiration dates, requiring traders to seek continuing exposure to replace expiring contracts.
Applied to individual stocks, the perpetual structure carries a familiar crypto trading mechanism into the equity market. Investors gain exposure to a stock’s price through a derivative contract. The regulatory significance lies in allowing that product within supervised domestic venues, with the obligations and protections that accompany them.
CFTC Chairman Michael Selig cast the action as part of his campaign to bring perpetual derivatives into the United States. He said he had directed the agency at the start of his tenure to use its existing tools so such products could develop domestically, subject to appropriate safeguards.
The stock contracts build on an earlier milestone that saw CFTC give clearance for the first true Bitcoin perpetual futures on a regulated U.S. exchange. Decrypt identified Kalshi as the venue receiving that clearance earlier this year. Extending the approach to equities moves the initiative beyond bringing crypto derivatives home and toward integrating crypto market structures into mainstream finance.
According to Decrypt, the equity contracts were deemed approved as security futures products under the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. That classification places them within the joint jurisdiction of the CFTC and SEC, making coordination central to their entry into regulated markets.
Selig credited a memorandum of understanding signed by the two agencies in March with helping resolve the jurisdictional uncertainty surrounding such products. The agreement supplies a coordination framework for activity that combines securities exposure with derivatives trading, supporting the agencies’ effort to move it from offshore venues into regulated U.S. markets.
For exchanges and financial intermediaries, the development signals an opening for product design across markets that have historically operated under different regulatory structures. Joint oversight also means firms must consider the requirements of both agencies when developing and offering security futures products.
The domestic market is already taking shape. Decrypt reported that Coinbase recently filed to list single-stock perpetual contracts tied to companies including Apple, Tesla and Nvidia. Those filings underscore how demand for crypto-style instruments is expanding to familiar corporate shares.
The approval sits alongside the CFTC’s wider plans to bring crypto exchanges under federal oversight. Selig has repeatedly argued that access to regulated U.S. venues can reduce traders’ reliance on offshore platforms, where supervisory standards and investor protections may be weaker.
That argument does not remove the risks inherent in leveraged trading. Margin and funding obligations continue even without a contract expiration date. The policy shift is to accommodate those risks within an established regulatory framework, while allowing a trading model developed in crypto markets to become part of the U.S. equity derivatives landscape.
