The U.S. futures regulator CFTC announced on November 3, 2026, that perpetual futures on individual U.S. stocks, called “Equity Perps,” could begin trading on U.S.-regulated exchanges for the first time.

In an official statement, Commission Chairman Michael S. Selig said the contracts are deemed approved under Regulation 40.3 as so-called security futures products. The statement says they can be traded on exchanges registered both with the CFTC as designated contract markets and with the SEC as national securities exchanges through so-called notice registration. In the same statement, Selig spoke of an expansion that “marks a significant step toward allowing U.S. market participants, consistent with applicable law, to benefit from the advantages of perpetual futures”
A product brought over from offshore crypto platforms
Perpetual futures are a crypto-native product: contracts with no expiry date whose price is kept close to a reference price through periodic funding payments between long and short positions. Until now, U.S. traders have mainly accessed such contracts through offshore platforms, and the offshore risk became apparent after around $6.3 billion was withdrawn from hot wallets on October 29, according to data from TRM Labs and Chainalysis. According to Selig, the goal is to bring this market into the U.S. regulatory system instead of having traders rely on offshore and often unregulated platforms.
The move continues a path that began in May, when the CFTC approved the first U.S. bitcoin perpetual future, Kalshi BTCPERP, on May 29, 2026. Selig presented Equity Perps as an expansion of that decision “beyond digital commodities and into traditional securities.” In September, Kalshi added perpetual futures on gold and silver.
The legal basis
The decision rests on the joint CFTC and SEC framework established by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, and on a memorandum of understanding between the two agencies, signed on March 11, 2026, to coordinate rules and enforcement. Selig’s statement, however, does not name any exchange, specific contracts, or a launch date; those details must come from the exchanges themselves.
The product’s legal status is not final. CME Group sued the CFTC in June over its approval of Kalshi’s bitcoin futures contract, arguing that a contract built around an exchange of funding payments is a swap under Dodd-Frank, not a futures contract. The case is pending.