Six Trading Firms Back the CFTC on Single-Stock Perpetual Futures

Six trading and exchange firms asked a federal court to leave the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission's clearance of single-stock perpetual futures standing. Coinbase, Kalshi, Payward, DRW Holdings, Jump Trading and Paradigm moved for leave to file an amicus brief in Capital Markets Alliance Association v. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, before Judge Valerie Caproni in the Southern District of New York. Their case is narrow. A contract that meets the statutory definition of a security future cannot be a swap, the firms wrote, and no expiration date is required for it to qualify. The plaintiff wants the clearances vacated and kept from taking effect while the suit runs.

What the brief argues

Security futures sit under joint CFTC and SEC oversight, a split written into statute in 2000, and the argument turns on which side of it these contracts fall. The test is whether equity perpetuals meet the definition of a security future, not whether their structure resembles some other derivative, the brief said in the crypto.news account. It also said the two agencies "jointly sought public comment on whether perpetual contracts should be classified as security futures" and that the SEC was "at the table from the very start", quoted by The Block. Perpetuals carry standardized terms, margin and central clearing, and funding payments hold them to the stock price. None of the accounts this desk read cites a section of the Commodity Exchange Act or an SEC rule.

"U.S. investors deserve access to these markets under the strong consumer protections and joint oversight of the CFTC and SEC," Ryan VanGrack, Coinbase's vice chairman, wrote on X.

The Block and Cointelegraph both say Monday. The crypto.news body gives 9 November, which is that Monday, while a post embedded on the same page is dated Tuesday and has the six moving for leave that day. Neither stamp confirms the other. All three link the same brief file and all three count six filers.

The ruling the plaintiff is working from

Judge Caproni denied a temporary restraining order on 3 November, finding no imminent, irreparable harm had been shown, and the clearances stayed in place. In the same ruling she found the plaintiff likely to succeed on its claim that the agency had exceeded its statutory authority, and that the contracts appeared to qualify as swaps instead of security futures, Cointelegraph reported. crypto.news puts that finding in different words: the products do not provide for delivery of a security on a specified future date. A preliminary injunction motion is pending, and the six firms asked the court to reject it. The commission's opposition was due on 6 November, and the plaintiff's answer to it was scheduled for Tuesday, called a reply by one outlet and a response by another.

Two lists of who applied

The accounts of which venues sought the listings do not match. The Block names Coinbase, Kalshi and Payward as the applicants, deemed approved on 2 November. crypto.news names Coinbase Derivatives, KalshiEX and Bitnomial Exchange, filed on 18 September and deemed approved on the same date, and notes Payward bought Bitnomial this year, which may account for the gap. It may not. Cointelegraph dates to 3 November a commission announcement that single-stock perpetuals could trade on US-regulated exchanges for the first time, and crypto.news describes a 3 November clearance while holding to 2 November for the deemed approval. Both dates sit here; neither account reconciles them.

The injunction motion decides whether the clearances hold

No account says a venue has listed one of these contracts yet, and none carries a volume or open-interest figure. The commission has been here before. It told a court in October that CME had no standing to challenge perpetual futures, and NYSE owner ICE backed a US perpetual futures venue at the end of the same month. The plaintiff is a newly formed trade association, Cointelegraph said, with Cboe and Citadel Securities among its members.

What the injunction motion settles is whether the clearances keep effect while the merits are argued. Nothing in the material this desk read says when Judge Caproni will rule, and the filing schedule is hers to move.