Cboe dismantles the myth that perpetual futures and 0DTE options are the same thing

If someone told you a hammer and a scalpel were basically the same tool because they’re both made of metal, you’d probably back away slowly. That’s roughly how Cboe’s Market Intelligence team feels about the growing tendency to lump perpetual futures and zero-days-to-expiration (0DTE) options into the same bucket. The exchange operator released a research paper on July 14, 2026, titled “Crossed Wires: Separating Perception from Reality,” and its central argument is blunt: these two instruments are fundamentally different in structure, risk profile, and real-world application. The CFTC catalyst The paper arrives with pointed timing. On May 29, 2026, the CFTC approved Kalshi’s Bitcoin perpetual futures contracts, a milestone that brought crypto-native perpetual futures into the regulated US derivatives landscape for the first time. Around that approval, CFTC Chair Selig reportedly suggested that perpetual futures and 0DTE options share enough similarities to be considered comparable products. Cboe’s report is, in essence, a polite but thorough rebuttal of that framing. Perpetual futures carry a linear payoff structure. If the underlying asset moves 5% against your position, you lose ...