CFTC says US stock perpetual futures can begin trading on eligible exchanges

CFTC clears stock perpetual futures for eligible venues

The CFTC said on Nov. 3 that US stock perpetual futures could begin trading on eligible regulated exchanges.

These contracts track share prices and have no fixed expiration date. They do not give the holder ownership of the underlying shares. Holders can still be blocked from exiting when trading is halted or closed.

Key points

• Chairman Michael Selig said the contracts had been deemed approved under Regulation 40.3.
• Eligible venues are designated contract markets that are also notice-registered with the SEC as securities exchanges.
• Kalshi says it now offers single-stock perpetuals, but they do not trade around the clock.
• Coinbase's product record still showed "Approval Pending" when checked Nov. 4, and its customer launch has not been established by the supplied material.
• A single-security future must halt when its underlying security is under a regulatory halt, subject to any applicable exemption.

What the CFTC announcement said

The announcement brings the products into the agencies' joint security-futures framework. That framework applies both securities and futures oversight.

Permission at the product level is separate from access at a specific venue. A venue still needs its own products, controls and customer process.

What Kalshi and Coinbase filings show

Kalshi says its single-stock perpetuals have no expiration date. Markets follow schedules with regular closures. Customers cannot open or close positions while a market is closed.

Access on Kalshi requires a perpetuals application and an educational tutorial. Leverage depends on the stock and position size. Kalshi calculates stock-perp funding once daily at 4 p.m. Eastern. Adverse moves may trigger liquidation if maintenance margin is breached.

Coinbase's September filing describes cash-settled futures on stocks and ETF shares, without ownership of the underlying shares. Its filing uses AAPL as a representative specification. Listing is contingent on approvals.

Coinbase's filing proposes hourly funding and trading from Sunday at 8 p.m. through Friday at 5 p.m. Eastern. Its index design checks input freshness, removes outliers and uses median pricing. It also describes fallbacks when inputs are insufficient.

Coinbase's filed Rule 1207 would subject its contracts to US equity market-wide circuit breakers and coordinated halts. It would also allow restrictions for corporate actions, market disruptions and index-price or data outages.

SIFMA, a securities industry trade group, sent a Nov. 2 letter seeking further review of proposals from Bitnomial, Coinbase, Kalshi and Nadex. The letter raised concerns about manipulation, thin-liquidity trading and classification.

Halts and closures can leave a position open

Regulatory halts are intended to let information circulate and markets regain order. Their immediate effect is that a holder cannot use a closing trade in the halted contract to reduce exposure.

The same stock and its options generally honor the underlying halt too. A broader-market instrument might remain available during a company-specific halt, but it leaves company-specific risk.

For a venue-only outage while the cash market remains open and accessible, a separate trade may offset some exposure. That hedge would not close the original perpetual. It depends on access and liquidity.

Funding payments are cash adjustments on open positions. Pausing, deferring or changing funding does not close a position. A fallback price also does not guarantee a trade at that price.

Coinbase's filing says there would be no funding-rate publication for an entire hour in which trading is closed, paused or halted. The filing does not mean the position is settled.

What is confirmed and what is not yet shown

Confirmed from the supplied material: the CFTC's Nov. 3 statement, Kalshi's stated operating terms, and Coinbase's filed proposal and controls.

Not established: a Coinbase customer launch or final Coinbase terms. The individual CFTC product record still displayed "Approval Pending" when checked Nov. 4. The SEC rulemaking index marked Coinbase's separate customer-margin proposal withdrawn.

Those entries do not overturn the Nov. 3 announcement. They also do not show that Coinbase customers can now trade the products.

Why trading interruptions matter for holders

No expiry does not guarantee an exit. A position can remain open while its trading route is unavailable.

During a closure or halt, holders can face a different reopening price and margin pressure. This risk is separate from whether funding is calculated or paused.

Sources

• CryptoSlate