U.S. crypto firms can now offer perpetual futures contracts without regulatory issues from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, following the agency’s first approval allowing Kalshi to list and trade bitcoin perpetuals, the regulator announced on Friday.
Perpetual futures, or “perps,” are derivatives that enable investors to speculate on future price movements in crypto assets without an expiration date, allowing contracts to be held indefinitely. With this first approval on a registered platform, the U.S. derivatives regulator—long overseeing traditional crypto futures—has opened a domestic pathway for the potentially lucrative and popular arena of crypto perpetuals, which have primarily operated in non-U.S. jurisdictions.
The CFTC announced Kalshi’s approval for the first true bitcoin-referenced perp, BTCPERP, noting that the approval “requires, among other terms and conditions, that Kalshi list and maintain the BTCPERP Contract in compliance with all applicable provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act.” While Kalshi is publicly known as a leading prediction markets platform, the registered exchange has been expanding its business footprint.
In a no-action letter sent to Coinbase on the same day, the CFTC indicated it would not recommend enforcement action for certain perpetual futures products Coinbase intends to list through its CFM subsidiary. These perpetual futures will be routed through Coinbase Bermuda, treating them as “foreign futures.” The no-action letter enables CFM to use customers’ digital assets—including bitcoin, ether, and stablecoins—as margin collateral for these products.
The CFTC announcements follow President Donald Trump’s social-media post this week referencing perpetuals, in which he claimed the previous administration’s regulators “nearly DESTROYED the American Crypto Industry by driving Bitcoin, Crypto Perpetuals, and INNOVATION offshore, but ‘TRUMP’ SAVED IT.”
Trump’s CFTC chairman, Mike Selig, characterized the contracts as “a foundational risk management and price discovery tool in the global crypto asset markets.”
“Having true perpetual contracts in the United States represents a significant advancement in achieving President Trump’s goal of establishing America as the crypto capital of the world,” Selig wrote in an opinion piece published Friday at CoinDesk. He stated that his agency is now providing “a workable framework for true crypto asset perpetual contracts.”
Perpetual contracts, typically amplified with leverage, can magnify profits from even minor price movements in assets like bitcoin and Ethereum’s ether (ETH), but this amplification works in both directions, making them volatile investments.
Selig noted in March that he has been working to repair damage from the previous U.S. administration that “drove a lot of these firms and the liquidity offshore.” Other crypto-native exchanges the agency oversees in the U.S. include Bitnomial (recently acquired by Kraken) and Gemini, plus Kalshi’s prediction-market competitor, Polymarket.
Selig emphasized on Friday that his agency’s approach to perps would “limit excessive leverage, volatility and systemic risk.”
Perpetual contracts carry inherent risks, as demonstrated this week with the flash crash in the Hyperliquid SPACEX-USDH—a crypto perpetual contract for SpaceX’s market valuation—which caught many investors off-guard and wiped out approximately $1.5 million in notional value within 30 minutes due to a single large position that absorbed the market’s thin liquidity.
The CFTC’s new stance currently lacks the weight of formal rulemaking authority. The CFTC and its sister agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, have been establishing crypto policy through statements, no-action letters, approvals, and guidance. Until policies are codified through formal rules or legislation, they remain subject to reversal by future agency leadership.
In March, the two agencies released significant guidance offering their first definitions for classifying various crypto assets. The new taxonomy described regulatory buckets for these assets, establishing how they would be regulated and by whom, while also outlining standards for how crypto securities might transition classifications as projects mature.
The SEC is also preparing to issue a comprehensive crypto policy that could facilitate tokenization of securities by providing temporary exemptions from registration for digital asset innovations. This initiative—led by SEC Chairman Paul Atkins—is designed as an interim measure to encourage crypto activity while awaiting more permanent congressional legislation.
UPDATE (May 29, 2026, 14:17 UTC): Adds identification of the approved firm, Kalshi, and addition of no-action guidance involving Coinbase.