Coinbase, Kalshi and Other Firms Back CFTC in Fight Over Stock Perpetuals

A dispute over who may regulate perpetual futures linked to individual US stocks is drawing some of crypto’s most prominent companies into federal court. Coinbase, Kalshi, Kraken parent Payward, DRW, Jump Trading and Paradigm have sought permission to support the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in litigation brought by the Capital Markets Alliance Association. Their proposed intervention follows approvals for new stock-linked perpetual products earlier this month. TL;DR: Six firms filed a proposed friend-of-the-court brief backing the CFTC’s authority in the single-stock perpetual futures case. A judge earlier denied emergency relief but questioned the regulator’s legal basis for the approvals. The court has not delivered a final ruling on whether the products should remain available. Why the legal issue is more complicated than crypto versus Wall Street A perpetual futures contract provides economic exposure to price changes without a preset expiration date. It is a familiar structure in cryptocurrency markets. Applying the design to an individual listed US company raises a separate statutory question: which agency’s rules govern the product, and what obligations attach to th...