CFTC Cracks Open U.S. Market for Bitcoin and Crypto Perpetual Futures

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The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has cleared the way for American traders to access one of crypto’s most important derivatives markets, approving the first true bitcoin perpetual futures contract on a U.S. exchange and issuing parallel relief that lets Coinbase route U.S. clients into global perp and options liquidity. On Friday, the agency approved KalshiEX, LLC’s BTCPERP contract, a perpetual futures product that references the spot price of bitcoin and trades on Kalshi’s CFTC‑regulated designated contract market. At the same time, staff granted no‑action relief to Coinbase Financial Markets, allowing it to offer digital commodity derivatives — including access to offshore venues — to U.S. customers through a CFTC‑registered futures commission merchant structure. Perpetual futures, or “perps,” are a type of futures contract with no expiration date that lets traders bet on the price movement of assets without owning them directly. They have become the dominant product in crypto derivatives trading, with most activity historically concentrated on offshore platforms. CFTC Chair Michael Selig framed the move as a watershed moment for U.S. market structure. “This morning, the CFTC took historic action to permit the listing of a true bitcoin perpetual contract by a CFTC‑registered exchange, charting a path for one of the most liquid segments of the crypto asset markets to exist within the US regulatory framework,” Selig said in a post on X. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong quickly seized on the news, highlighting just how much market access the agency has effectively unblocked. “Big day for our US‑based traders, and for Coinbase,” he wrote on X, noting that U.S. users had previously been shut out of “~80% of global crypto markets (perpetual futures and options). But not anymore!” Through Coinbase Financial Markets, institutional clients will be able to access global perps and options — including Deribit, which boasts tens of billions of dollars in bitcoin options open interest — via a single U.S.‑regulated FCM. CFTC 24/7 Advisory Friday’s announcements did not come in isolation. Alongside the product actions, the CFTC’s Division of Clearing and Risk, Division of Market Oversight and Market Participants Division issued a staff advisory on 24/7 trading, clearing and settlement of derivatives. The advisory is not a formal rulemaking, but it offers a window into how the agency is thinking about round‑the‑clock markets increasingly enabled by blockchain and decentralized infrastructure. Commission staff said they have observed growing interest in effectively 24/7 trading, driven in part by digital asset markets. “Therefore, Commission staff believes that an advisory, outlining the potential risks associated with 24/7 trading, clearing, and settlement, and the ways in which these risks are addressed by current Commission regulations, may help promote continued market robustness, along with responsible innovation and fair competition among market participants,” the staff wrote. In practice, the combination of the Kalshi approval, the Coinbase no‑action position and the 24/7 advisory amounts to a blueprint for how U.S.‑regulated entities can plug into, and help domesticate, the global perpetuals market. Kalshi can list a fully regulated bitcoin perp on its own exchange, while Coinbase, through its FCM, can connect U.S. clients to deep offshore liquidity pools without forcing them into bespoke offshore corporate structures. Under Chair Selig and President Donald Trump, the CFTC has steadily pivoted from a posture of enforcement‑driven deterrence toward one of structured onshoring of key crypto market segments. Earlier this year, the CFTC and SEC jointly outlined a new taxonomy for crypto assets, and the SEC is preparing a broad tokenization rule set, while Paxos just secured approval to clear U.S. equities on blockchain rails.

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