Coinbase and Kalshi back CFTC in stock perps lawsuit

Coinbase, Kalshi, Kraken parent Payward, DRW Holdings, Jump Trading, and Paradigm Operations filed a proposed amicus brief Monday in federal court, backing the CFTC against a legal challenge to its decision allowing perpetual futures tied to individual US stocks to trade on regulated exchanges.

The filing follows a ruling by US District Judge Valerie Caproni, who found that the Capital Markets Alliance Association — a trade group whose members include Cboe and Citadel Securities — was likely to succeed in its claim that the CFTC exceeded its statutory authority. Caproni indicated the contracts appeared to qualify as swaps under SEC jurisdiction rather than security futures under joint CFTC-SEC oversight, though she declined to grant a temporary restraining order.

The CFTC cleared single-stock perpetual futures for US trading on November 3. The amicus group argues that a fixed expiration date is not required for a contract to qualify as a security future, putting them directly against CMAA's position that the absence of an expiry date places the instruments under tighter SEC restrictions on retail access.