CFTC Clears Equity "Perps" for U.S. Exchanges, Importing a Crypto Trading Model to Wall Street

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has cleared the way for perpetual futures tied to individual stocks — "equity perps" — to trade on registered U.S. exchanges for the first time, according to CoinDesk, which cited a Tuesday statement from CFTC Chairman Michael Selig.

Selig said the contracts were "deemed approved" under existing security-futures rules — an interpretation of current law rather than a fresh rulemaking. Because stock-based derivatives straddle both securities and commodities law, the contracts will fall under joint CFTC and SEC oversight, using the framework set by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000; Selig said the two agencies also agreed to coordinate more closely on products that cross their jurisdictions.

Perpetual futures let traders bet on an asset's price without owning it. Unlike conventional futures, they have no expiration date and typically use leverage, which amplifies both gains and losses. They are a staple of crypto trading — heavily on offshore and decentralized venues such as Hyperliquid — and CoinDesk, citing DeFiLlama data, reported more than $630 billion in crypto perps volume over the past month. That figure is for crypto perps generally, not for the newly cleared equity contracts, which do not yet exist in the market.

The clearance extends an effort the Trump administration has pushed to bring perps onshore. Earlier this year the CFTC approved the first bitcoin perpetual futures contract on a regulated U.S. exchange, per CoinDesk, and the outlet reported that Trump said at an August White House meeting that the agency is working to bring Hyperliquid under U.S. federal rules. Wall Street incumbents are positioning too: Intercontinental Exchange, the NYSE's parent, recently invested in tradeXYZ, a builder of perpetual-futures markets on Hyperliquid, CoinDesk reported.

Key facts

• CFTC "deemed approved" equity perps for registered U.S. exchanges; Chair Michael Selig announced it Tuesday (CoinDesk).
• Joint CFTC/SEC oversight under the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CoinDesk).
• Crypto perps traded more than $630B in the past month (CoinDesk, citing DeFiLlama) — a crypto-wide figure, not equity perps.
• CFTC earlier approved the first U.S.-regulated bitcoin perpetual futures contract this year (CoinDesk).
• ICE recently invested in tradeXYZ, which builds perp markets on Hyperliquid (CoinDesk).

The real-world read

Selig's statement names no exchanges, no launch stocks, and no start date — so there is approval, but nothing yet to trade. Note the mechanism: this is an interpretation that existing rules already permit the contracts, not a new framework subject to public comment, which lets the product arrive faster and with less debate. The "offshore, and often unregulated" line is a regulator's political framing for onshoring a leveraged product, not a neutral description; the same leverage risks exist on U.S. venues. This item rests on a single secondary outlet, CoinDesk; the underlying CFTC statement had not been independently reviewed here, and the agencies' own text should be checked against it as it becomes available.

This is news, not financial advice. Leveraged products can lose money quickly.