The United States has, in fewer than four months, stood up a regulated perpetual futures market that has processed $44 billion in notional volume. KalshiEX LLC, the first CFTC-registered exchange to list a true perpetual contract, launched its bitcoin product (BTCPERP) on June 3, 2026, after rece...
"Perpetual futures are the purest form of trading." — Tarek Mansour, CEO, Kalshi
The United States has, in fewer than four months, stood up a regulated perpetual futures market that has processed $44 billion in notional volume. KalshiEX LLC, the first CFTC-registered exchange to list a true perpetual contract, launched its bitcoin product (BTCPERP) on June 3, 2026, after receiving formal CFTC approval on May 29. As of September 11, the platform lists 20 perpetual markets — spanning crypto, gold, and silver — with aggregate 24-hour volume of $803 million and $26.9 million in open interest.
The regulatory shift is strategic. Global perpetual-futures volume reached approximately $61.7 trillion in 2025, according to Datawallet and Coinglass data, with over 90% of that activity flowing through offshore venues — Binance, Bybit, OKX — beyond U.S. supervisory reach. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig framed the approval as repatriation policy, calling it "a major step forward in delivering on President Trump's goal of cementing America as the crypto capital of the world." The onshore buildout now extends beyond Kalshi: Kraken launched regulated perps on June 15, Coinbase received a CFTC no-action letter for its Bermuda-routed perpetuals, and both Kalshi and Coinbase filed in September to bring single-stock equity perpetuals under dual CFTC-SEC jurisdiction.
The speed of expansion has drawn a legal challenge from CME Group, which sued on June 18 arguing that perpetuals are swaps, not futures, and therefore require different regulatory treatment. The CFTC moved to dismiss on September 2, calling the case "much ado about nothing."
Perpetual futures — derivatives contracts with no expiration date that track spot prices via a funding-rate mechanism — have been the dominant instrument in crypto markets since BitMEX popularized them in 2016. By 2025, they constituted the majority of crypto derivatives volume globally. The entire market operated offshore, outside U.S. regulatory perimeters.
That changed on March 3, 2026, when CFTC Chairman Michael Selig, confirmed in December 2025, announced at the Milken Institute's Future of Finance conference that the agency would create a framework for onshore perpetuals "in the coming weeks." The stated objective: recapture liquidity that had migrated to platforms in Asia, Europe, and the Bahamas.
The CFTC's formal order arrived on May 29 (Press Release 9240-26), classifying the BTCPERP contract submitted by KalshiEX as a futures contract — not a swap — on a designated contract market (DCM). This classification was consequential. Futures on DCMs carry different margin, reporting, and customer-protection requirements than swaps, and critically, they are accessible to retail traders without the Eligible Contract Participant restrictions that apply to most swap markets.
Simultaneously, the CFTC issued a policy statement (Press Release 9241-26) confirming that other DCMs could list comparable products and that overseas perpetual contracts accessed through registered futures commission merchants (FCMs) would be treated as foreign futures. This opened a second pathway: U.S. retail could access offshore perpetual markets through a registered FCM, an avenue previously unavailable when these products were classified as swaps.
Kalshi's perpetual product line has expanded in three phases:
Phase 1 — Bitcoin (June 3, 2026): BTCPERP launched as a cash-settled contract referencing spot bitcoin. Maximum leverage: 5.9x. Funding rate charged every eight hours. The contract crossed $1 billion in notional volume within its first week, according to CNBC.
Phase 2 — Altcoins (September 4, 2026): Five additional crypto perpetuals went live: BNB, Cardano (ADA), Worldcoin (WLD), Aave (AAVE), and Venice (VVV). This brought the crypto lineup to six tokens plus bitcoin.
Phase 3 — Precious Metals (September 10, 2026): GOLDPERP and SILVERPERP launched after CFTC approval of filings originally submitted in July. Gold carries maximum leverage of 15.2x; silver, 7.7x. These are the first non-crypto perpetual futures approved by the CFTC. The contracts are cash-settled, carry no expiration date, and use the same funding-rate mechanism as the crypto products.
Gold and silver event contracts on Kalshi had previously attracted over $400 million in volume over seven months — half the time it took crypto event contracts to reach the same mark. The demand signal was strong enough to accelerate the perpetual filing.
Phase 4 — Equities (Filed September 11, 2026): Kalshi filed for approximately 60 stock- and ETF-linked perpetual futures, including Tesla, Apple, and Nvidia. Each contract would represent 100 shares with a minimum margin requirement of roughly 15% of notional value. Underlying stocks must have a minimum market cap of $100 billion and average daily volume of at least $450 million. The contracts would trade 23 hours a day, five days a week.
Because equities are securities, these contracts fall under joint CFTC-SEC jurisdiction and require dual-agency approval.
As of September 11, 2026, Kalshi's perpetual futures platform shows:
| Metric | Value | |---|---| | Total markets listed | 20 | | Cumulative notional volume (since June 3) | $44 billion | | Aggregate 24-hour volume | $803.24 million | | Aggregate open interest | $26.92 million | | BTC 24-hour volume | $458.01 million | | BTC open interest | $11.63 million | | Time to first $1B volume | 7 days |
For context, the global offshore perpetual futures market processed approximately $61.7 trillion in 2025. Monthly perpetual volume on centralized exchanges was approximately $4 trillion in July 2026, according to Coinglass — the lowest in 31 months. Binance alone processed approximately $25 trillion in perpetual-futures volume in 2025 with a 29.3% market share.
Kalshi's $44 billion cumulative volume since June represents a fraction of the global market but is significant for a single U.S.-regulated venue operating for fewer than four months.
CME Group filed suit on June 18, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. v. Selig), arguing that perpetual contracts are swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act and the Dodd-Frank Act, not futures, because they lack a set delivery date. CME sought to vacate the May 29 CFTC order and policy statement and obtain a declaration that crypto perpetuals must be regulated as swaps.
The distinction matters. Swaps are subject to different clearing, reporting, and counterparty requirements, and are generally restricted to Eligible Contract Participants — effectively barring retail access. If perpetuals were reclassified as swaps, Kalshi's retail-facing model would need restructuring.
On September 2, 2026, the CFTC filed a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) (lack of jurisdiction) and 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim). The agency's core argument: CME lacks standing because nothing prevents CME, itself a designated contract market, from listing the same products. The CFTC called the lawsuit "much ado about nothing," noting that CME had publicly stated its customers were not asking for perpetual products.
CME's opposition brief is due October 2. The outcome will determine whether the futures-vs.-swaps classification holds and whether the retail access pathway remains open.
Kalshi is not the only entrant:
Coinbase: Received a CFTC no-action letter permitting certain perpetual futures through its Coinbase Financial Markets (CFM) subsidiary, routed through Coinbase Bermuda and treated as "foreign futures." On September 1, Coinbase filed SEC notice registrations (Form 1-N for Coinbase Derivatives; Form BD-N for Coinbase Financial Markets) to bring single-stock equity perpetuals onshore. Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad announced the filing on September 4. Coinbase had already launched single-stock perpetuals for non-U.S. customers in March 2026, covering the "Magnificent 7" tech stocks plus SPY and QQQ ETF perpetuals. COIN stock jumped 10.14% to $192.70 on the filing announcement.
Kraken: Launched CFTC-regulated perpetual futures for U.S. traders on June 15, 2026, using its Bitnomial and NinjaTrader acquisitions to build a compliant onshore derivatives stack.
The CFTC's case-by-case review policy — confirmed by Chairman Selig on June 16 — means each new asset class requires its own submission and approval rather than receiving automatic clearance based on the Bitcoin precedent. This creates a first-mover advantage for platforms that file early and build relationships with the review process.
The filings from both Kalshi (September 11) and Coinbase (September 1) to list equity-linked perpetual futures represent a structural challenge to traditional market infrastructure. If approved, these products would enable 23- to 24-hour leveraged trading on individual stocks outside NYSE and Nasdaq operating hours.
The regulatory path is complex. Equity perpetuals are "security futures" under Section 2(a)(1)(D) of the Commodity Exchange Act, placing them under joint CFTC-SEC jurisdiction. The SEC's September 2026 roundtable on 24/7 trading frameworks — convened separately — reflects parallel regulatory interest in extended-hours equity access.
Citadel Securities has raised concerns that equity perpetual futures could create a "parallel shadow market," potentially generating compliance blind spots around insider trading, position reporting, and investor protection. The structure — a derivatives contract referencing an equity security, traded on a crypto-native exchange, with no expiration and embedded leverage — has no direct precedent in U.S. market structure.
Consumer advocates have flagged several structural risks in retail-accessible perpetual futures:
Robinhood, which offers perpetual futures to European customers, requires users to pass a knowledge test before trading. No comparable requirement exists on U.S.-regulated perpetual platforms as of September 2026.
The onshore buildout directly threatens the volume base of offshore exchanges. Binance, OKX, and Bybit have captured the majority of global perpetual-futures volume by operating outside U.S. jurisdiction. If regulated U.S. venues can offer comparable products with lower counterparty risk and tax-reporting integration, a portion of U.S.-origin flow currently routed offshore could migrate back.
However, structural differences remain. Offshore venues offer leverage of 50x to 125x on some products, far exceeding the 5.9x to 15.2x ranges available on Kalshi. The asset coverage on offshore platforms spans hundreds of tokens; U.S. venues currently list fewer than 20 products. Fee structures, funding-rate models, and trading interfaces also differ.
The DEX-to-CEX perpetual volume ratio is expected to stabilize around 20% throughout 2026, according to The Block. Decentralized perpetual platforms — Hyperliquid, dYdX, GMX — operate in a regulatory gray zone that the CFTC's onshore framework has not yet addressed directly, although Hyperliquid has been pressing both the SEC and CFTC on classification.
In fewer than four months, the United States has moved from zero regulated perpetual futures to a multi-asset, multi-venue market processing hundreds of millions of dollars in daily volume. The speed of product expansion — from bitcoin to altcoins to precious metals to equity filings — reflects both pent-up demand and competitive pressure among venues racing for first-mover advantage.
The CME lawsuit, due for CME's response on October 2, remains the primary legal risk. If the court agrees that perpetuals are swaps rather than futures, the entire retail-access framework would need restructuring. The CFTC's motion to dismiss signals confidence in its classification, but the outcome is uncertain.
Separately, the equity perpetual filings raise questions that extend beyond crypto-native markets. Regulated 24-hour leveraged trading on individual stocks — Tesla, Apple, Nvidia — through crypto-exchange infrastructure represents a structural shift in U.S. market access. Whether regulators approve these products, and under what conditions, will determine whether perpetual futures remain a crypto-market instrument or become a general-purpose derivatives format.
The offshore-to-onshore volume ratio will be the key metric to watch. At $44 billion against a $61.7 trillion annual offshore market, repatriation is measurable but marginal. The next twelve months will clarify whether regulated onshore venues can capture meaningful share or whether leverage limits, product restrictions, and regulatory overhead keep the bulk of perpetual volume offshore.