CFTC Chairman Selig Delivers on Crypto Promise Approving First Bitcoin Perpetual on US Exchange

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has approved the listing of the first regulated Bitcoin perpetual contract on a CFTC-registered exchange, marking the entry of one of crypto’s most traded products into the formal US regulatory framework.

The approved product is Kalshi’s BTCPERP contract, a perpetual futures contract referencing Bitcoin’s spot price. CFTC Chairman Mike Selig announced the decision, describing it as the delivery of a commitment he made in his first public remarks as chairman.

“Today the CFTC took historic action to permit the listing of a true Bitcoin perpetual contract by a CFTC-registered exchange, charting a path for one of the most liquid segments of the crypto asset markets to exist within the US regulatory framework,” Selig said.

Why This Matters

Bitcoin perpetual contracts are among the most heavily traded instruments in all of crypto. Until now that trading happened almost entirely offshore, outside US regulatory oversight, on platforms like Binance, Bybit, and OKX.

Bringing perpetuals onto CFTC-registered exchanges means customer protections, margin requirements, and market integrity standards apply to products that previously operated in a largely unregulated environment. 

For US traders it creates a compliant domestic alternative. For the broader market it signals that the US intends to compete directly for crypto derivatives volume rather than cede it to offshore venues.

The Coinbase and Deribit Piece

Separately the CFTC’s Market Participants Division issued a no-action letter giving Coinbase Financial Markets conditional relief to use customer-owned digital assets and payment stablecoins as margin for crypto derivatives trading on its affiliated platform Deribit.

CFTC staff confirmed that certain crypto perpetual contracts can be categorised as foreign futures, providing the legal framework Coinbase needs to connect its US futures commission merchant operations with Deribit’s offshore derivatives exchange. The no-action relief means the CFTC will not pursue enforcement action against Coinbase for posting customer-owned crypto assets as margin under the specified conditions.

The Bigger Picture

Selig connected the approval directly to the administration’s broader crypto agenda. He argued that previous regulators treated innovation as a threat, driving American builders offshore. The perpetual contract approval is framed as part of a deliberate strategy to bring that activity back.

“The US is now the crypto capital of the world,” Selig said. “The new frontier of finance is being built in America.”

For the crypto derivatives market the combination of Kalshi’s BTCPERP listing and the Coinbase-Deribit framework creates the first genuine US regulatory infrastructure for perpetual contract trading, a product category that generates hundreds of billions in daily volume globally.