CFTC’s Selig Says Perpetual Futures on Individual Stocks Can Now Trade in the US

Perpetual futures on individual stocks can now trade on U.S.-regulated exchanges, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig said in a statement on Tuesday, widening a product the agency first allowed for bitcoin in May.

Selig wrote that the contracts “can begin trading for the first time on CFTC-registered exchanges,” which a footnote defines as futures exchanges that are also notice-registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission to trade security futures. The statement did not name an exchange, list which stocks the contracts track, or say when trading would start.

Perps are futures with no settlement date. A recurring payment between long and short holders keeps their price close to the underlying asset.

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Selig said the Commission deemed the contracts approved under Regulation 40.3. He described them as security futures products, which Congress brought under joint CFTC and SEC oversight in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. That puts them under both commodities and securities law. The statement and the agency’s press release do not reference a Commission order for the stock contracts. In May, the agency issued an order approving Kalshi’s BTCPERP contract a day after Kalshi submitted it under the same rule.

Selig said the new step carries perps “beyond digital commodities and into traditional securities” and lets U.S. traders use them at home “rather than being forced to turn to offshore, and often unregulated, venues.”

Bits + Bips co-host and Head of Franklin Crypto Chris Perkins welcomed the shift toward onshore perps a day before the announcement, while discussing ICE’s planned U.S. venue for Hyperliquid-based perpetuals. “Been waiting for this for a very, very long time,” he said on Unchained’s Bits + Bips, recalling that he had urged Congress years ago to bring such trading onshore.

Selig tied the most recent CFTC stance to the memorandum of understanding the CFTC and SEC signed on March 11, and to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, who in a March 19 speech said their relationship had “resembled two fortresses facing one another” with “the wreckage of would-be financial products” left in the space between. The agencies “have turned the page on that era,” Selig wrote.

Coinbase has filed to list perps on individual U.S. stocks, and Kalshi and Payward’s Bitnomial exchange submitted similar proposals in September. Selig’s statement did not say whether those proposals are the contracts now deemed approved.

The agency’s perps push is also being tested in court. CME Group sued the CFTC in June over the bitcoin perp approval, and the regulator has asked a judge to dismiss the case.

Selig said the CFTC will keep working “to ensure that the new frontier of finance is built in the United States of America.”

Related Listen: Why a Single Word Will Decide Who Can Trade Perps in the U.S

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