Kalshi plans to seek U.S. regulatory approval for roughly 60 perpetual futures tied to stocks and ETFs, including Tesla, Apple and Nvidia, that could trade nights and weekends. Citadel Securities has told regulators the products should stay under SEC oversight, warning they could otherwise create a "parallel shadow market" outside existing stock-market surveillance.
Kalshi is preparing to seek regulatory approval for about 60 perpetual futures linked to individual stocks and exchange-traded funds, including Tesla, Apple and Nvidia. The Wall Street Journal reported the plan on Sept. 10, and if approved, the contracts would be the first regulated single-stock perpetual futures in the United States.
First regulated single-stock perps
Perpetual futures let traders bet on whether an asset will rise or fall, often using leverage, without the contract ever expiring. Funding payments between long and short traders keep the price anchored near the underlying asset instead.
Kalshi has not disclosed the products' leverage limits, margin requirements or a launch date. The company already won CFTC approval in May for a bitcoin perpetual contract, which the regulator classified as a futures product while warning the structure might not fit every asset class and that perps tied to other kinds of assets should go through individual review.
Citadel warns of a "parallel shadow market"
Citadel Securities told the SEC and CFTC in a Thursday letter that products tied to U.S. public companies should remain under SEC oversight. According to Citadel Securities: "parallel shadow market" is what moving them elsewhere could create, disconnected from the surveillance used across stocks and options.
The firm pointed to a scenario where an employee with undisclosed earnings information could theoretically trade a perp while the stock market is shut. A company could also release major news during a trading halt while its perpetual contract keeps moving, unless the two markets coordinate.
A fight already in court
CME Group sued the CFTC and Chairman Michael Selig in June over the agency's approval of perpetual futures for Kalshi and Coinbase, arguing the contracts qualify as swaps under the Dodd-Frank Act rather than futures. The case remains separate from Citadel's request for SEC oversight of stock-linked products.
Perpetual-futures trading volume rose 29% to $61.7 trillion during 2025, according to CryptoQuant data cited by Reuters. Both regulatory challenges now sit alongside Kalshi's plan to bring the products to individual stocks for the first time.
Sources: CoinDesk, crypto.news
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