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May 29 was a watershed moment for US crypto derivatives. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued two decisions in a single day that together represent the most significant reshaping of the domestic crypto futures landscape since Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) went live:
Kalshi submitted its BTCPERP contract to the CFTC on May 28 under Commission Regulation 40.3. The agency reviewed and approved it in under 24 hours. The contract references Bitcoin’s spot price and carries no expiration date, making it a genuine perpetual rather than a rolling fixed-term instrument.
The First American Perpetual Future.
Kalshi. pic.twitter.com/BQDtNHyQSq
— Tarek Mansour (@mansourtarek_) May 29, 2026
Bitnomial received regulatory clearance for a similar product in December 2025, but that contract carried a 25-year term limit. BTCPERP is the first with no expiration at all, matching the structure that has made perpetuals the dominant derivative instrument in global crypto markets for the past several years.
CFTC Chair Mike Selig framed the action explicitly as a reversal of prior regulatory posture. The agency’s approval requires Kalshi to maintain BTCPERP in full compliance with the Commodity Exchange Act. Kalshi plans to launch the product within one month and has opened a waitlist. The company has also signaled plans to add perpetual contracts on more than a dozen other digital assets following the Bitcoin launch.
The second decision of the day addressed a different problem. Approximately 80% of global crypto derivatives volume trades on offshore venues, primarily through perpetual futures and options markets that US retail customers have been unable to access through regulated domestic channels. The CFTC’s ruling on Coinbase Financial Markets changes that.
The agency issued guidance clarifying that certain crypto perpetual contracts can qualify as foreign futures under existing CFTC rules when they trade through an affiliated foreign board of trade. Coinbase Financial Markets, as a CFTC-registered futures commission merchant, can now route US customers to those products under specified conditions. The practical effect is to connect American retail traders to Deribit’s perpetuals and options markets, which Coinbase acquired in a $2.9-billion deal earlier this year, without requiring each product to go through the domestic approval process that Kalshi’s BTCPERP required.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong described the ruling as opening the door to roughly 80% of global crypto markets for US users who had been locked out. Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal called it bringing proven global products under American regulation.
Big day for our US-based traders, and for Coinbase.
Until now, US users have been locked out of ~80% of global crypto markets (perpetual futures and options). But not anymore!
Coinbase is the first and only regulated platform able to connect US users to global crypto options… pic.twitter.com/7EdDUN3Yn6
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) May 29, 2026
The twin approvals land in a market where Kalshi and Polymarket are already racing toward overlapping product sets from different regulatory starting points. Polymarket announced its own perpetuals push in April, targeting assets, including Nvidia, Coinbase shares, silver, and gold, with leverage up to 10 times. Its offshore structure allows faster product iteration but lacks the domestic regulatory legitimacy that Kalshi’s Designated Contract Market (DCM) status provides.
The CFTC also accompanied its approvals with a policy statement noting that perpetual contracts may not be appropriate for all asset classes and establishing a case-by-case review process for future applications from other exchanges. This signals that the agency intends to manage the pace of onshoring rather than opening the floodgates entirely.
Finally, the era of American regulators treating crypto perpetuals as an offshore problem is over. The question now is how quickly domestic venues can build liquidity that competes with markets that had a multi-year head start.
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