Coinbase Derivatives has asked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to approve perpetual futures on individual US stocks, joining Kalshi and Kraken parent Payward in a three-way race to bring the no-expiry contract format from crypto markets into equities.
Coinbase filed on September 18, seeking approval for cash-settled perpetual contracts on roughly 50 to 60 of the most liquid US-listed stocks and ETFs. Nvidia, Microsoft, Tesla and Apple are among the names in the filing, and the company used an Apple contract as its worked example in the CFTC submission. The contracts would trade 24 hours a day, five days a week, with no fixed expiration. Traders could hold long or short positions indefinitely as long as margin requirements are met, and periodic funding payments between longs and shorts would keep contract prices aligned with the underlying shares.
“Crypto was first, now it’s time for stocks,” Coinbase said when announcing the filing. The company had already laid the groundwork: on September 1 it filed Form 1-N with the Securities and Exchange Commission to register as a national securities exchange for security futures products. Single-stock futures sit at the intersection of securities and derivatives law, so both regulators must sign off before any product lists.
Kalshi and Payward filed the same week
Kalshi, better known as a prediction market, submitted a proposed rule change to the SEC and a parallel approval request to the CFTC on September 18. Its application covers 58 proposed stock-linked contracts, which it plans to treat as security futures products and clear through Kalshi Klear, its own CFTC-registered clearing organization. The CFTC has listed the Kalshi application among its pending matters.
Payward, Kraken’s parent company, said it is filing rules and product terms through Bitnomial, the US-regulated exchange and clearinghouse it acquired last year in a $550 million deal. Payward plans to start with ten US stocks, including Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, Microsoft and Amazon, and offer trading 24 hours a day, five days a week. It has not disclosed leverage limits, fee schedules or final contract specifications, and it said its contracts are also subject to the applicable regulatory process with filings going to both the CFTC and the SEC.
| Firm | Contracts | Clearing | Trading hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coinbase Derivatives | 50-60 stocks and ETFs | Coinbase Derivatives Exchange | 24/5 |
| Kalshi | 58 stock-linked contracts | Kalshi Klear | To be determined |
| Payward (Bitnomial) | 10 stocks at launch | Bitnomial Clearinghouse | 24/5 |
Why the format matters
Perpetual futures are the dominant derivatives format in crypto, but they barely exist in US equities. CME Group launched conventional single-stock futures with quarterly expirations, which force holders to roll positions every few months and pay transaction costs each time. The three filings propose the crypto-style alternative: no expiry, continuous funding, leveraged exposure without owning the shares. A trader who wants a long position on Nvidia for a year can hold one contract instead of rolling four quarterly futures.
The funding mechanism is the piece that regulators will scrutinize. In crypto perpetuals, funding payments flow between longs and shorts at regular intervals, usually every eight hours, based on the gap between the contract price and the index price. When the contract trades above the index, longs pay shorts, which pulls the contract back down. Coinbase’s CFTC submission describes a funding rate for its equity contracts, and the exact formula, payment frequency and cap settings will shape how closely the contracts track the stocks they reference.
The products are already available to customers outside the United States through Coinbase International, Kraken and Binance. Offshore equity perpetuals have built real volume over the past two years, which is part of why three firms filed within days of each other. Bringing them onshore requires a heavier regulatory process, since equity index futures fall under the CFTC alone while single-stock futures face joint SEC and CFTC oversight under the security futures regime.
Market reaction and the regulatory queue
Coinbase stock rose as much as 11 percent in a single session after the filing became public. The move reflects investor interest in any product that widens Coinbase’s derivatives business beyond crypto, where competition on fees is intense and spot volumes have been uneven through 2026.
The CFTC lists the Coinbase and Kalshi applications as pending. Approval timelines depend on the commission’s review queue and any public comment periods, and Kalshi’s structure adds an SEC rule-change step that Coinbase’s exchange registration already covers. Payward has not said when it expects its Bitnomial filings to clear.
None of the three firms has announced a launch date or initial liquidity plans. The first venue to win approval would set the template for funding-rate formulas, margin rules and trading hours, and competitors would likely copy the structure closely. Watch for contract specification disclosures, the CFTC’s approval orders, and early volume comparisons between the equity perpetuals and CME’s dated single-stock futures.
For the crypto industry, the filings mark another step in the effort to port crypto-native market structure into regulated US markets. They follow the CFTC’s recent no-action letter that lets wallet and app software route users into regulated derivatives markets without broker registration, and they land at a moment when the Senate has failed to advance the CLARITY Act but regulators keep expanding approved crypto-adjacent products case by case. Equity perpetuals would also give crypto firms a foothold in a derivatives market worth trillions in annual notional volume, a business currently dominated by traditional futures brokers and CME.