CME Group is suing its own regulator over how Bitcoin perpetual futures should be classified, and Bank of America says the exchange could come out ahead whether it wins or loses. The fight lands as crypto perpetual trading volume approaches $93 trillion, a market CME's own crypto futures business barely dents.
On June 18, CME Group filed suit against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, arguing that Bitcoin perpetual futures contracts listed by rival exchange KalshiEX should be classified as swaps rather than futures. The filing came less than three weeks after the CFTC accepted KalshiEX's bitcoin perpetual contract as a futures product on May 29.
A win-win setup, Bank of America says
If CME wins, perpetual contracts could face swap-dealer registration, added reporting duties, and stricter margin standards, according to Bank of America — burdens that would make the product harder to offer. But losing could work in CME's favor too: the exchange holds exclusive futures license agreements for the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, and Russell 2000, so if perps still count as futures, rivals may struggle to build contracts tied directly to those indexes. Bank of America rates CME Underperform with a $230 price target, against a $274.70 share price on Sept. 10.
A $93 trillion market puts pressure on exchanges
Bank of America expects crypto perpetual trading to exceed $93 trillion in notional volume in 2025, nearly five times the size of the underlying spot market. CoinGecko puts centralized perpetual exchange volume at $86.2 trillion for 2025, up 47.4% from a year earlier, with decentralized platforms adding another $6.7 trillion. CME's own crypto futures averaged 278,000 contracts a day in 2025, about $12 billion in daily notional value, according to Crypto Briefing. That works out to roughly $4.4 trillion a year, or less than 5% of the wider perpetual market's volume. Traders favor the product because it never expires and lets them apply leverage without rolling into new contracts, though Bank of America notes a 10% adverse move against a 10-times leveraged position could wipe out a margin position.
Cboe and ICE face opposite exposure
Cboe carries more risk if stock perpetuals take off, since retail traders overlap with its S&P 500 zero-days-to-expiration options business; its stock fell about 30% between May 15 and June 30, though Bank of America rates it Neutral with a $354 price target. Intercontinental Exchange looks more insulated, since roughly 95% of its exchange income comes from institutional clients who need features perpetuals don't offer. ICE also invested in crypto platform OKX in March at a $25 billion valuation, and Bank of America names it the top exchange pick with a Buy rating and $232 price target.
CME, Bank of America argues, doesn't need to win in court to come out the winner.
Sources: TheStreet, Crypto Briefing
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