CFTC Opens Faster Route For U.S. Crypto Perpetual Futures

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has given registered U.S. futures exchanges a temporary path to convert existing digital commodity perpetual-style futures into true crypto perpetual futures.

The June 12 no-action letter from the CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight covers contracts that already resemble perps but still include long-dated expiration dates. Under the relief, designated contract markets can remove those expiration dates and turn the products into true digital commodity perpetual futures, provided they meet customer-protection and filing conditions.

The letter was issued after requests from Bitnomial Exchange and Coinbase Derivatives. It applies to existing perpetual-style futures on digital commodities that fit the CFTC’s earlier order for assets with deep, active and continuous spot markets. The relief does not apply to perpetual-style contracts tied to non-digital-commodity assets.

The move follows the CFTC’s May approval of KalshiEX’s BTCPERP contract, which gave the U.S. market its first approved Bitcoin perpetual futures contract on a regulated designated contract market. The agency also issued a policy statement on perpetual contracts, keeping asset classes outside that order subject to case-by-case review.

Temporary Relief Comes With Conditions

The new relief is narrow and expires on June 30, 2026. Exchanges relying on it must solicit feedback from market participants with open positions, give at least five calendar days of notice, allow traders to close open positions under the existing contract terms, provide risk disclosures, and avoid changing other material contract terms beyond the expiration date.

That structure matters for contracts with open interest. Removing an expiration date can affect pricing, hedging and position management, especially when traders entered under a different contract design. The CFTC staff letter treats those transition risks as a customer-protection issue rather than a simple product-label change.

Perpetual futures are different from standard futures because they have no fixed expiry. They use funding-rate mechanics to keep the contract price close to the underlying spot market, making them one of crypto’s most active trading products on offshore exchanges and decentralized platforms.

The latest action gives U.S. exchanges a clearer operational route to compete with offshore perps markets while keeping trading inside regulated futures infrastructure. It also strengthens the U.S. derivatives backdrop around products such as Kalshi’s HYPE perpetuals, which have already pushed regulated crypto exposure beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Crypto And Commodity Market Lines Keep Blurring

The perps decision lands as regulators review how far 24/7 market access should extend beyond crypto. CME Group has announced smaller 24/7 WTI crude oil and gold contracts, including a 10-Barrel WTI crude oil futures product targeted for August 30, pending regulatory review. Regulators are also reportedly examining whether round-the-clock oil trading could worsen volatility during thin liquidity and market-stress periods.

That debate overlaps with the earlier fight around onchain commodity-linked products. Hyperliquid has already faced pressure from CME and ICE over oil-linked markets, sanctions-risk concerns and questions about 24/7 crypto-native price discovery. The new CFTC relief does not approve commodity perps, but it widens the regulated U.S. pathway for crypto perps while traditional exchanges seek approval for always-open commodity exposure.

The shift also connects to market-data infrastructure. Pyth’s 24/7 indices for equities, metals and oil showed how crypto trading platforms are preparing continuous reference prices for assets that historically traded around traditional sessions.