US crypto firms can offer perpetual futures contracts, or “perps”, without running afoul of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to the agency’s first approval allowing Kalshi to list and trade bitcoin perpetuals, the regulator said on Friday.
Perp is a type of derivative that allows the investor to speculate on future price movements in a crypto asset without setting an expiration date on that contract, making it possible to hold it as long as the investor wants. With this first approval on a registered platform, the U.S. derivatives regulator with a long history of overseeing traditional crypto futures is now opening a U.S. avenue for the potentially lucrative and popular arena for cryptocriminals who have previously been pursued more in non-U.S. jurisdictions.
The CFTC announced that Kalshi would be approved for the first true bitcoin-referenced perp, BTCPERP, and the agency said the approval “requires, among other terms and conditions, that Kalshi list and maintain the BTCPERP contract in accordance with all applicable provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act.” While Kalshi is best known to the public as a leading prediction market platform, the listed exchange has expanded its business footprint.
In a no-action letter sent to Coinbase the same day, the CFTC said it would not recommend an enforcement action for certain perpetual futures products that Coinbase intends to list through its CFM subsidiary. These perpetual futures will be routed through Coinbase Bermuda, so they will be treated as “foreign futures.” The no-action letter will allow CFM to post customers’ digital assets (including bitcoin, ether and stablecoins) as margin collateral for these products.
The CFTC announcements follow closely on the heels of President Donald Trump’s social media posts this week, which cited perpetuals and argued that the previous administration’s regulators “almost DESTROYED the US crypto industry by driving Bitcoin, Crypto Perpetuals and INNOVATION offshore, but ‘TRUMP’ DID IT.”
Trump’s CFTC chairman, Mike Selig, argued that the contracts represent “a fundamental risk management and price discovery tool in the global cryptoasset markets.”
“Having true perpetual contracts in the US is a huge step forward in delivering on President Trump’s goal of cementing America as the world’s crypto capital,” Selig wrote in an opinion piece published Friday on CoinDesk. He said his agency now provides “a workable framework for true crypto-active perpetual contracts.”
Perps, typically augmented with leverage, can be a way to make big money from even small price movements in assets such as bitcoin and Ethereum’s ether (ETH), but that also means they can go the other way just as sharply, making them a volatile investment.
Selig had said in March that he has tried to repair damage from the previous US administration that “drove a lot of these companies and the liquidity offshore.” Some of the other crypto-native exchanges overseen by the agency in the US include Bitnomial (just acquired by Kraken) and Gemini, plus Kalshi’s prediction market rival, Polymarket.
Selig wrote Friday that his agency’s approach to perps would “limit excessive leverage, volatility and systemic risk.”
There are also other dangers associated with perpetuities, as seen this week with the flash crash of Hyperliquid SPACEX-USDH, a perpetual crypto contract for SpaceX’s market valuation, catching many investors off guard, wiping out about $1.5 million in nominal value within 30 minutes due to an excessive position that absorbed the market’s thin liquidity.
The CFTC’s new position does not yet carry the weight of a formal rule. The CFTC and its sister agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, have revealed their current positions on various aspects of the industry. But until the policies are set in formal regulations or—even more durable—new laws, they can easily be overturned by future agency heads.
In March, the two agencies released a very consequential guidance that – for the first time – offered their definitions for classifying various cryptoassets. The new taxonomy described a number of buckets the assets could be placed into, which would establish how they would be regulated and by whom, and it also set standards for how a cryptosecurity can eventually move out of this classification as its project matures.
The SEC is also poised to release a far-reaching new crypto policy intended to pave the way for the tokenization of securities by offering temporary exemptions from registration for digital asset innovations. The shift — a marquee project for SEC Chairman Paul Atkins — is planned as a temporary measure to boost crypto activity while the industry awaits more permanent legislation from Congress.
Read more: CFTC chief Selig to clear path for US perpetual futures in coming weeks
UPDATE (29 May 2026, 14:17 UTC): Adding identification of approved company, Kalshi, and adding no-action guidance involving Coinbase.
