Four executives at incumbent US exchanges and other market participants warn that perpetual futures could add serious new risks to the US derivatives market. Regulators have already approved the contracts for Bitcoin and individual stocks, and CME Group has sued over the Bitcoin approval.
Four executives at incumbent exchanges and other key market participants told Reuters that perps could introduce serious new risks to the multitrillion-dollar US derivatives market. Their warnings come after regulators approved the contracts for both Bitcoin and individual stocks.
The Trump administration wants to bring the products onshore, even though they began as an offshore crypto product.
What makes perps different
A traditional futures contract has a set end date, and positions must be settled or rolled over when it arrives. A perpetual future has no end date, so traders can hold a position indefinitely, and the market never closes for the night or the weekend.
Perps rely on a funding rate to keep the contract's price anchored to the underlying asset. The bigger worry is leverage of 50 to 100 times on offshore venues, and perps are predominantly used by retail investors rather than institutional desks.
How Washington got here
The push has been led by CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig. The agency approved Bitcoin perpetual futures in May 2026, the first time such contracts were cleared for trading on a US-registered exchange. Single-stock equity perpetual futures followed with CFTC approval on November 3, 2026.
The scale of the offshore market helps explain the urgency. Offshore crypto perpetual trading volume hit $61.7 trillion in 2025, up 29% year over year, and nearly all of it happened outside US oversight.
Incumbents take the fight to court
CME Group sued the CFTC in June 2026 over the Bitcoin perps approval. The exchange operator contends that perpetuals should be treated as swaps, not futures, and that labeling them futures would unfairly harm competition among exchange operators.
A second legal front opened after the equity perps decision. A group including Cboe and Citadel filed follow-on litigation in early November 2026.
Supporters point to guardrails, since regulated US platforms may impose leverage limits of approximately 6x. Critics respond that even at reduced leverage, perps combine round-the-clock trading, no expiration and a heavily retail user base.
If CME succeeds in having perpetuals classified as swaps, the regulatory foundation for the CFTC's approvals could be thrown into question.
Source: Crypto Briefing
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