CFTC gets into legal clash over stock perps after having cleared path for crypto version

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said on 3 November that perpetual futures tied to individual shares can begin trading on eligible US exchanges. The contracts have no fixed expiry and give traders exposure to a share’s price without owning it. CFTC chairman Michael Selig said the contracts had been deemed approved as security futures under existing rules. They would fall under both CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) oversight, extending the regulator’s May decision to permit a bitcoin perpetual future on a regulated exchange.

The move faces legal objections from established exchange operators. In submissions to the SEC, Cboe and Nasdaq argued that contracts without an expiry may not meet the statutory definition of security futures and urged closer scrutiny of the proposed listings. CME Group is separately challenging the CFTC’s treatment of crypto perpetual contracts in federal court, arguing that they are swaps rather than futures. Those disputes leave the classification of perpetual contracts contested even as the CFTC opens a route for stock-linked products. The agency’s announcement did not establish which exchanges would launch them or when trading would start.