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Crypto’s Perpetual-Futures Playbook Is Moving Into U.S. Markets

By Isaac • September 4, 2026 7:14 am • Comments

One of crypto’s most important trading inventions is no longer staying inside crypto.

Perpetual futures—leveraged contracts that track an asset without a fixed expiration date—are moving into regulated U.S. markets. What began as the dominant structure on offshore crypto exchanges is now shaping proposals for Bitcoin, equities and even physical commodities such as oil.

CryptoSlate describes a market-structure shift with consequences well beyond a new product listing. Exchanges and regulators must decide how round-the-clock trading, continuous funding payments, margin and automatic liquidation fit inside systems built around closing bells and dated contracts.

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The report follows the model from its crypto origins into regulated U.S. venues and then into proposals involving equities and energy. Its central tension is clear: traders want continuous access, but traditional clearing and surveillance systems were not designed around a contract that never expires.

Perpetuals let traders maintain long or short exposure without rolling a contract into a new expiration month. A recurring funding payment helps keep the contract near the underlying spot price, and that design became enormously popular in crypto because the underlying markets never close.

The U.S. regulatory path began moving in a concrete way this year. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission records its May 29 approval of KalshiEX’s BTCPERP contract, a perpetual contract tied to Bitcoin’s spot price.

The agency also issued a policy statement saying contracts outside that order should receive case-by-case review because the risks can differ by underlying asset. Its innovation tracker places the Bitcoin approval beside a wider push involving 24/7 trading, foreign futures and market infrastructure.

That record shows the change is more than a discussion paper: a regulated Bitcoin perpetual received approval, and CFTC staff later created a conditional route for other designated contract markets. The conditions still matter, because an exchange must make the required filings and certify compliance before converting a qualifying product.

On June 12, CFTC staff went further. A conditional no-action position gave designated contract markets a path to convert qualifying perpetual-style digital commodity futures into true contracts without expiration dates, provided the exchanges satisfy filing and compliance requirements.

Industry advocates want regulators to keep going. The Blockchain Association has asked the SEC and CFTC to coordinate on a U.S. framework for equity perpetuals, arguing that uncertainty has pushed trading and price discovery offshore.

Letting a contract trade all day is easier than making the surrounding system ready for it. Clearing, collateral, surveillance, settlement and customer support all have to function when a market has no nightly pause.

A perpetual contract also depends on a reliable reference price and a funding mechanism that does not become easy to manipulate.

Those questions become more complicated when the underlying asset is not Bitcoin. The CFTC has sought input on perpetual contracts tied to physically delivered or storable energy commodities.

Oil and other physical markets carry delivery constraints, commercial hedging needs and position-limit concerns that do not map neatly onto digital assets.

The Crypto Council for Innovation’s August filing argued that perpetuals can serve legitimate risk-management and price-discovery functions under the CFTC’s existing framework. Its public summary also emphasized 24/7 trading, a feature that increasingly looks less like a crypto novelty and more like a competitive pressure on traditional exchanges.

The real debate is whether U.S. markets can absorb always-on leverage without importing the weakest parts of offshore crypto trading.

A durable framework would need transparent funding rates, strong margin rules, dependable price benchmarks and clear protections when automated liquidations accelerate. It would also need regulators to settle which agency oversees products that reference securities rather than commodities.

Crypto proved that traders want contracts without an expiration date. The next stage will show whether American regulators can bring that demand onshore while preserving the safeguards that make a regulated market worth having.

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