Four companies filed with U.S. regulators in a single week to list perpetual futures on individual American stocks. Coinbase Derivatives, Kalshi, Payward (Kraken's parent), and Crypto.com's Nadex each submitted filings between September 14 and September 18, 2026, seeking approval to offer cash-se...
"The US needed to recapture liquidity that has migrated to platforms in Asia, Europe and the Bahamas." — Michael Selig, Chairman, Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Four companies filed with U.S. regulators in a single week to list perpetual futures on individual American stocks. Coinbase Derivatives, Kalshi, Payward (Kraken's parent), and Crypto.com's Nadex each submitted filings between September 14 and September 18, 2026, seeking approval to offer cash-settled, no-expiry contracts on names including Apple, Tesla, Nvidia, and Microsoft. The filings collectively cover approximately 50–60 equities and ETFs. All remain in "Approval Pending (45)" status at the CFTC as of September 20, with a review window running to November 2.
The race marks the first attempt to bring perpetual futures — a product that accounts for over 90% of all global crypto derivatives volume — into regulated U.S. equity markets. It follows the CFTC's May 29 approval of the first onshore bitcoin perpetual contract and CME Group's July 27 launch of conventional (dated) single-stock futures on 55 equities. The combined filings represent a structural claim by crypto-native exchanges on traditional equity market share, enabled by a regulatory framework that did not exist four months ago.
Coinbase stock (COIN) closed at $194.25 on September 19, up 12% on the day. The market is pricing in the possibility that a crypto exchange becomes a venue for Apple and Nvidia exposure — 24 hours a day, five days a week, with no share ownership required.
The filing sequence unfolded rapidly:
September 14 — Crypto.com / Nadex: North American Derivatives Exchange filed Form 1-N with the SEC, becoming a registered national securities exchange for security futures products the same day. Under Section 6(g) of the Exchange Act, notice registration takes effect upon filing — no SEC vote required. CEO Kris Marszalek confirmed plans for 10 initial single-stock futures, with perpetual variants under discussion with both the SEC and CFTC. Robinhood agreed to route prediction-market volume through the same exchange and take equity stakes in both OG.com and Crypto.com.
September 18 — Coinbase Derivatives: Filed Submission 2026-62 with the CFTC, signed by Chief Regulatory Officer Jane Downey. The filing requests approval for cash-settled perpetual contracts on the "most liquid U.S.-listed equity securities and ETFs," using an Apple contract as the representative specification. Coinbase plans 50–60 contracts. The filing follows a September 1 Form 1-N and Form BD-N with the SEC, establishing the dual-entity structure (exchange plus limited-purpose broker-dealer) needed to list and clear domestic equity perpetual futures.
September 18 — Kalshi: Filed separately for perpetual futures on Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, SPY, and QQQ. Contracts specify 23-hour weekday trading and 15.50% minimum customer margin, cleared through Kalshi Klear.
September 18 — Payward (Kraken): Filed through Bitnomial Exchange for perpetual futures on 10 U.S. equities: Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Broadcom, Micron, Alphabet, Palantir, and S&P 500-linked contracts. Additionally, Payward disclosed plans to route on-chain perpetual futures through Hyperliquid's HIP-3 framework, which would make it the first regulated U.S. entity to settle equity derivatives on a public blockchain.
A perpetual futures contract tracks the price of an underlying asset — in this case, an individual stock — without an expiration date. Traders hold long or short positions indefinitely, posting margin rather than purchasing shares.
Coinbase's Apple contract specification (Submission 2026-62):
The funding rate mechanism replaces the traditional futures roll. Every hour, the side of the market whose position deviates from the spot price pays the other side, anchoring the perpetual price to the underlying equity. This eliminates the quarterly expiry cycles and roll costs that define conventional futures.
Fractional contract sizing (0.01 shares) targets retail traders. At $2.25 per contract notional, the minimum position size sits below the price of a single Apple share ($225). This mirrors the micro-contract approach CME adopted for its July 27 launch, where Micro-sized contracts represent 10 shares versus the standard 100.
Single-stock futures are not new. OneChicago, jointly owned by CME, Cboe, and Interactive Brokers, operated the only U.S. exchange for these products from 2002 to 2020. Its trajectory is instructive.
Volume history:
OneChicago demonstrated that demand existed — five consecutive years of volume growth through 2017. It died on capital cost, not on demand.
The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 mandated that security futures margin "never fall below the lowest comparable exchange-traded option margin." Congress set this floor at 20% of contract value in 2002, specifically to prevent futures from undercutting options as cheap synthetic alternatives. On October 22, 2020, regulators reduced the floor to 15% — five weeks after OneChicago had already announced closure. The cut arrived too late.
A secondary barrier compounded the margin problem: dual registration. Securities brokers needed separate CFTC registration as futures commission merchants while maintaining SEC broker-dealer status. Most firms declined. Coinbase's September 1 filing addresses this directly by housing both registrations (Form 1-N and Form BD-N) within a single corporate family.
The current filings operate within a regulatory framework that materialized in three stages:
May 29, 2026 — CFTC perpetuals framework: The Commission approved the first bitcoin perpetual contract for listing on a registered designated contract market, issued a policy statement for future perpetual contract submissions, and granted no-action relief enabling FCMs to intermediate customer access to foreign-listed perpetual futures. Chairman Selig stated that perpetual contracts under CFTC oversight "remain subject to the same leverage restrictions that apply to other regulated futures products in the United States."
July 27, 2026 — CME single-stock futures launch: CME listed cash-settled futures on 55 U.S. equities plus 22 Micro-sized contracts under the existing 15% margin floor. These are conventional dated futures, not perpetuals.
September 1–18, 2026 — Perpetual equity filings: Four companies filed to apply the perpetual structure to equities, extending the CFTC's crypto-specific framework into security futures territory.
The CME Lawsuit: On June 18, CME filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the CFTC and Chairman Selig, arguing that contracts with no expiry and funding payments are swaps, not futures, and that the CFTC "ushered new entrants into CME's retail futures market." On September 2, the CFTC moved to dismiss, calling the suit "much ado about nothing" and arguing CME lacked standing. CME's opposition is due October 2.
The classification question is material. If perpetuals are deemed swaps rather than futures, they fall under a different regulatory regime with higher capital requirements and counterparty clearing mandates. The outcome affects whether any of the September filings proceed to market.
The filings target the largest unregulated derivatives market in existence.
Offshore crypto perpetual futures volume (July 2025 – February 2026): $14 trillion over six months, a figure that doubled within that period, according to KuCoin and Datawallet research. As of 2026, perpetual futures account for over 90% of all global crypto derivatives volume.
Centralized exchange monthly volume (July 2026):
Decentralized exchange share: 13.5% of total perps open interest by early 2026, up from 3.6% a year earlier. Hyperliquid holds approximately 70% of on-chain perps market share with over $8 billion in daily volume.
Stock perpetuals specifically: These do not yet exist in regulated U.S. markets. Coinbase launched international stock perps in March 2026, offering up to 10x leverage on individual stocks and 20x on ETFs (SPY, QQQ) across 26 European markets, settled in USDC.
The addressable market for regulated U.S. equity perpetuals is undefined but framed by reference points. Leveraged single-stock ETF assets grew to $43–65 billion in under two years. U.S. equity options volume has grown consistently for a decade. The filing thesis is straightforward: a fraction of those flows, redirected through perpetual structures, justifies the regulatory expense.
The economic value distribution of stock perpetuals differs materially from spot equity trading.
Fee capture shifts from exchanges to intermediaries. In spot equity markets, exchange fees are sub-penny per share. In perpetual futures, exchanges earn trading fees (typically 2–6 basis points per trade on offshore venues), funding rate spreads, and liquidation penalties. Coinbase's international stock perps charge maker/taker fees. Coinbase Derivatives does not yet publish its domestic fee schedule, but the economics of clearing through Nodal Clear add a separate cost layer.
Value leaks to funding rate arbitrageurs. The hourly funding payment in Coinbase's specification (capped at 0.10% per hour) creates a continuous cost for directional traders and a revenue source for basis traders who arbitrage the perp-to-spot spread. In crypto perps markets, funding rate arbitrage has become a multi-billion-dollar strategy. Applying this to equity markets creates new MEV-equivalent value flows.
Clearing costs replace custody costs. Equity perpetual traders do not own shares — they hold margin at a futures clearinghouse. This eliminates custody and settlement costs (T+1 equity settlement infrastructure) but introduces clearing fees, margin funding costs, and counterparty risk exposure to the clearing entity.
Tax treatment remains unresolved. Conventional futures benefit from the 60/40 rule (60% long-term, 40% short-term capital gains). Security futures products historically received ordinary income treatment — one of the factors that suppressed OneChicago adoption. Whether perpetual equity futures receive 60/40 treatment, ordinary income treatment, or something else is undetermined.
Four companies filed in one week to list perpetual futures on U.S. stocks, collectively covering 50–60 equities and ETFs. All filings are pending CFTC review through at least November 2.
The product category has zero U.S. market history in perpetual form. Conventional single-stock futures had an 18-year run through OneChicago (2002–2020) that ended when a 20% margin floor made the economics unworkable. The current 15% floor may still prove insufficient against options competition.
CME's lawsuit against the CFTC directly challenges whether perpetuals are futures or swaps. The outcome, with CME's opposition due October 2, could determine whether any of these filings reach market.
Offshore perpetual futures volume hit $14 trillion in six months. The CFTC's stated objective is repatriating this liquidity. Extending the framework from crypto to equities is a logical but legally untested extension.
Coinbase structured its filing to solve OneChicago's distribution problem by housing both the exchange registration (Form 1-N) and broker-dealer registration (Form BD-N) in one corporate family, eliminating the dual-registration burden that deterred securities firms from participating.
Payward's plan to route through Hyperliquid would create the first regulated U.S. equity derivative settled on a public blockchain, merging DeFi infrastructure with federal oversight.
The September filings represent a structural convergence. Crypto-native exchanges are applying instruments invented for Bitcoin to Apple shares. Traditional exchanges are relaunching products that failed six years ago under modestly improved margin rules. A prediction market platform is filing alongside both. And one applicant wants to clear everything on a DeFi protocol.
Whether this converges into a functioning market depends on three variables: the CFTC's 45-day review outcome, the resolution of CME's classification lawsuit, and whether 15% margin on equity perpetuals attracts sufficient liquidity to sustain continuous funding rates. OneChicago's history demonstrates that demand alone is insufficient — margin economics, distribution access, and regulatory classification must all align simultaneously.
The total economic value at stake is bounded by the offshore perpetual futures market ($14 trillion in six months) on the high end and OneChicago's peak volume (14.9 million contracts annually) on the low end. The actual outcome will depend on which regulatory and structural constraints bind first.