CFTC Approves First Regulated Crypto Perpetual Futures in the US

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) cleared the way for domestically regulated Bitcoin perpetual futures last Friday. This is the first time a licensed US exchange has received that authorization.  

Kalshi received approval to list and trade a Bitcoin-referenced perpetual contract designated BTCPERP. Perps, a product that has long been more accessible in offshore crypto markets, allows traders to hold a speculative position on an asset's price with no expiration deadline attached, provided they can maintain the required margin. 

On the same day, the CFTC issued formal guidance to Coinbase Financial Markets, a registered US subsidiary of Coinbase, allowing it to connect US customers to crypto options and perpetuals available on global exchanges. Those contracts will flow through Coinbase Bermuda and be treated as foreign futures under US law. Customers will be able to post Bitcoin, ether, and stablecoins as margin collateral. 

Both announcements came shortly after President Donald Trump weighed in publicly, faulting the prior administration for pushing crypto derivatives activity out of the country and into offshore venues. CFTC Chairman Mike Selig described the regulatory step as central to the agency's goal of establishing the US as a competitive player in global crypto derivatives markets. 

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour characterized the perps approval as a turning point for the company, one of the top prediction market apps, framing it as a natural extension beyond its event contracts business. Notably, the CFTC's decisions were issued through approvals and no-action guidance rather than formal rulemaking, leaving them potentially vulnerable to reversal under future leadership. 

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has also said it plans to introduce Bitcoin perps. 

White House reviews CFTC prediction market jurisdiction 

Kalshi's expansion into perpetual futures is unfolding alongside a separate, equally consequential regulatory battle that lies at the core of what originally made the company well-known. 

Around the same time the perps announcement was made, the CFTC's draft rulemaking proposal for prediction markets had already been forwarded to the White House's Office of Management and Budget for review, a routine but meaningful checkpoint in the federal regulatory process.  

The proposal would, for the first time, give the agency codified rules specific to event contracts traded on platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket, rather than relying solely on claimed authority to regulate them. 

President Trump publicly endorsed the CFTC's jurisdiction over prediction markets in a social media post timed to the review filing, stating that the agency's exclusive authority over these products should be protected and that the platforms should be free to grow.  

Gary Gensler, who previously chaired both the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission under prior administrations, publicly argued that the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 does not extend the CFTC's regulatory reach to cover prediction markets. 

Gensler has also questioned whether an agency historically built around institutional hedging in agricultural and energy markets is the appropriate body to govern event contracts tied to sports and gaming.