Stock perpetual futures cleared to trade on CFTC exchanges as Cboe-backed group sues

Perpetual futures on individual U.S. stocks “can begin trading for the first time on CFTC-registered exchanges,” Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig said in a statement on November 3, 2026. Within hours, the Capital Markets Alliance, a trade group whose members include Cboe Global Markets, Citadel Securities and the Healthy Markets Association, sued the CFTC and Selig in federal court in New York to undo the approvals.

What the CFTC allowed

The contracts were deemed approved under CFTC Regulation 40.3 as security futures products, a category Congress created in 2000 for joint CFTC and SEC oversight. Selig said that means the contracts are subject to the Commodity Exchange Act, the federal securities laws and both agencies’ frameworks. The exchanges allowed to list them are futures markets that are also notice-registered with the SEC as securities exchanges.

According to the Alliance’s complaint, the approvals cover September 18 applications from Kalshi, Coinbase Derivatives and Bitnomial. Kalshi’s schedule lists 58 contracts on 55 stocks and three ETFs or ADRs, and Bitnomial’s covers 10 stocks, including Alphabet and Microsoft. The complaint says the CFTC issued no written order: it let the 45-day review period run out, and the filings were deemed approved.

Selig framed the move as onshoring. He said it lets American traders use perpetual futures “within the protections of the CFTC’s proven regulatory framework, rather than being forced to turn to offshore, and often unregulated, venues.” It follows the CFTC’s May 29 approval of Kalshi’s bitcoin perpetual contract.

What the lawsuit argues

The Alliance says single-stock perpetuals are not security futures at all. Because they never expire and require no future delivery, it argues, they cannot be security futures; instead they meet the definition of security-based swaps, which Congress placed under the SEC’s exclusive jurisdiction and limited to SEC-registered exchanges for retail investors. It also says the CFTC never explained the reversal of its long-standing treatment of perpetuals as swaps, and failed to address concerns raised by commenters and lawmakers.

The suit (No. 1:26-cv-9608, S.D.N.Y.) asks the court to vacate the approvals, declare the contracts security-based swaps, and grant a temporary restraining order and injunctions or a stay to keep the approvals from taking effect. In a separate statement, Cboe CEO Craig Donohue said the products “belong on registered securities platforms.”

What comes next

The suit follows a similar challenge by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which sued in Washington, D.C. over the bitcoin perpetual approval in a case that remains pending, the complaint notes. For Kalshi, Coinbase and Bitnomial, the stock contracts are approved but now challenged, and the Alliance wants the court to bar the CFTC from giving the approvals effect while the case is pending.

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