Key facts
- CFTC Chairman Michael Selig announced the approval in a statement, classifying equity perps as security futures products.
- Seven entities hold both CFTC contract market and SEC security futures registration: Cboe, CME, Coinbase, Kalshi, Bitnomial, Nadex and ICE Futures U.S.
- Kalshi has filed covering 56 to 58 names and expects to launch within days, per the newsletter.
- Coinbase has filed to list perps on Apple, Tesla and Nvidia.
- The Capital Markets Alliance argues stock perps are securities-based swaps that belong to the SEC, not the CFTC.
- The group also says the CFTC violated the Administrative Procedure Act by reversing an earlier position without explanation.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on November 3 that Americans can trade perpetual futures on individual stocks on CFTC-registered exchanges, classifying the products as security futures under the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which places them under joint CFTC and SEC oversight. The approval came as a statement from CFTC Chairman Michael Selig.
A perpetual future is a leveraged bet on a price that never expires; holders keep paying a funding rate as long as they meet margin. Crypto traders have used them for years, mostly on offshore venues like Binance and onchain platforms like Hyperliquid, because US law had no clear home for the product.
Hours after the announcement, a new group called the Capital Markets Alliance filed suit in the Southern District of New York, naming Cboe, Citadel Securities and the Healthy Markets Association among its members. The group argues on two tracks: that stock perps are securities-based swaps belonging to the SEC, and that the CFTC violated the Administrative Procedure Act by never explaining why it reversed an earlier position. The group wants the policy eliminated. The American Securities Association separately said Congress banned selling security-based swaps to retail investors at all.
A CFTC spokesman called the suit troubling and said markets should be governed by law, not litigation campaigns intended to block innovation. The CME previously sued over the CFTC's crypto perps approval on the theory that perpetuals are swaps rather than futures; that challenge went nowhere, according to the newsletter.
Only seven entities currently hold both a CFTC contract market designation and SEC notice registration as a national securities exchange for security futures products: Cboe, CME, Coinbase, Kalshi, Bitnomial, Nadex and ICE Futures U.S. Five of the seven filed within a single 30-day window in September. Kalshi has filed covering 56 to 58 names and expects to launch within days, while Coinbase has filed to list perps on Apple, Tesla and Nvidia, per the newsletter.