Kalshi Files to Bring Perpetual Futures to US Stocks, Joining Coinbase
Key Takeaways
- •Kalshi has filed a proposed rule change with the SEC and submitted it to the CFTC for approval to offer perpetual futures tied to individual US stocks.
- •The proposed contracts would have no preset expiration date and would use periodic funding payments between long and short positions to stay aligned with the underlying stocks.
- •Coinbase submitted its own single-stock perpetual futures proposal the same day as Kalshi, while Payward filed through its Bitnomial Exchange, planning to initially cover 10 US equities and pursue 24/5 trading.
- •Kalshi already offers CFTC-approved cryptocurrency perpetual futures, including a Bitcoin contract approved in May, giving it prior regulatory experience with the product structure it now proposes for equities.
- •Kalshi's proposal remains pending before the CFTC, making regulatory approval the determining factor for whether and when single-stock perpetual futures reach US traders.
Prediction market operator Kalshi has filed to offer perpetual futures tied to individual US stocks, joining Coinbase in the race to bring crypto-style derivatives to traditional equity markets. Perpetual futures are a mainstay of crypto trading but are not yet available to US equity traders.
Kalshi filed the proposed rule change with the Securities and Exchange Commission and submitted it to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for approval on Friday. The CFTC has yet to approve the proposal.
The proposed contracts would carry no preset expiration date and would instead use periodic funding payments between long and short positions to keep their prices aligned with the underlying stocks. Kalshi said the contracts would be treated as security futures products, a category under the joint oversight of the SEC and CFTC, and cleared through its CFTC-registered clearinghouse, Kalshi Klear.
The filing landed the same day Coinbase submitted its own proposal to offer perpetual futures tied to individual US, as both companies look to bring a derivatives product popular in crypto markets to traditional equities.
Kalshi already offers perpetual futures tied to cryptocurrencies in the US, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP), after receiving CFTC approval for its Bitcoin perpetual contract in May, giving it prior CFTC-approved experience with the product structure it now proposes for equities.
Related: DoubleZero adds Kalshi election market data ahead of US midterms
US stock perpetual futures race expands
Kalshi and Coinbase are joining an increasingly crowded field of operators seeking to bring single-stock perpetual futures to the US market.
Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, has also filed through its Bitnomial Exchange to offer the products, with plans to make them available to US traders on Kraken. In a post on X, Payward said it plans to initially offer perpetual futures tied to 10 US equities, including Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon, and is working toward 24/5 trading.
The filings came days after the CLARITY Act failed to advance in the US Senate on Sept. 15, falling short of the 60 votes needed to proceed. The measure would have set a market-structure framework for digital assets.
A day after the vote, SEC Chair Paul Atkins said in a post on X that “with or without legislation,” the agency would “act decisively” within its existing statutory authority to provide regulatory certainty for American investors and entrepreneurs.
Kalshi's proposal remains pending before the CFTC, leaving regulatory approval as the deciding step for whether and when single-stock perpetual futures reach US traders.
