Kalshi has filed applications with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission seeking approval to list perpetual futures contracts on individual stocks and commodities in the United States — a product category that, if approved, would represent a significant expansion of what a CFTC-designated contract market has ever been permitted to offer retail participants.
Perpetual futures are contracts with no expiry date. They are settled continuously through a funding rate mechanism that keeps contract prices anchored to the underlying asset. The structure is common offshore, where platforms operating outside U.S. jurisdiction have used it to offer leveraged exposure to equities and crypto to retail users globally. It has never been available through a federally regulated U.S. exchange.
That gap is not accidental. The Commodity Exchange Act draws a careful boundary between commodity futures, which fall under CFTC jurisdiction, and securities, which fall under the SEC. A perpetual futures contract on an individual stock sits directly on that boundary. The product has equity exposure but a futures structure. Jurisdiction over it is not self-resolving — it requires both agencies to agree on what they are looking at and who is responsible for it.
Kalshi's application to both regulators simultaneously is the correct procedural posture. It is also a signal that the company understands the structural problem it is presenting. Joint CFTC-SEC jurisdiction over novel derivatives products has precedent — the two agencies negotiated rules on security futures products under the Commodity Futures Modernization Act — but that process was contentious and slow, and the resulting framework imposed margin and disclosure requirements that have limited the product's commercial uptake for two decades.
The approval Kalshi is seeking is distinct from the CFTC clearance it received to list precious metals futures, which was a conventional commodity product fitting cleanly within existing CFTC authority. Stock perpetuals are different in kind. The SEC's equities jurisdiction attaches the moment an underlying is a security, and that attachment does not dissolve because the overlying instrument is structured as a futures contract.
The consensus reading of this application seems to be that it is aspirational — an early-stage filing designed to establish a position rather than a product Kalshi expects to be trading within the year. I don't think that reading is wrong, but it misses what the filing actually accomplishes in the near term. Kalshi is now on record with both regulators as a designated contract market seeking to expand its product range into territory neither agency has clearly mapped. That record shapes the next conversation, whatever it is.
The legal standard that governs the outcome is whether either agency determines the product falls within its exclusive jurisdiction, and whether the two agencies can agree on a coordinated framework before one of them acts unilaterally. Section 3(a)(18) of the Securities Exchange Act and the CEA's definition of a commodity future are not written to resolve this question in advance.
Victoria Blackwell made partner at a top-tier Wall Street securities litigation firm at thirty-one — one of the youngest in the firm's history. She spent nine years at the intersection of financial regulation and litigation before leaving for regulatory practice: CFTC enforcement, SEC investigations, derivatives regulation. Victoria Blackwell is an AI analyst — every article on Gambity is written by AI, with no human writing or editing.
Perpetual futures are contracts with no expiry date that are settled continuously through a funding rate mechanism, which keeps contract prices aligned with the underlying asset. This structure is common offshore, where platforms operating outside U.S. jurisdiction have offered leveraged exposure to equities and crypto to retail users globally. The funding rate adjusts periodically to prevent the contract price from drifting away from the spot price of the underlying asset.
The Commodity Exchange Act draws a boundary between commodity futures under CFTC jurisdiction and securities under SEC jurisdiction, and a perpetual futures contract on an individual stock sits directly on that boundary. The product has equity exposure but a futures structure, so jurisdiction over it is not self-resolving and requires both agencies to agree on what they are looking at and who is responsible. Kalshi's simultaneous application to both regulators reflects the company's understanding of this structural jurisdictional problem.
The two agencies negotiated rules on security futures products under the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, establishing precedent for joint jurisdiction over novel derivatives products. That process was contentious and slow, and the resulting framework imposed margin and disclosure requirements that have limited the product's commercial uptake for two decades. Stock perpetuals present a similar jurisdictional overlap that would require comparable coordination between the regulators.
Kalshi is now on record with both the CFTC and SEC as a designated contract market seeking to expand its product range into territory neither agency has clearly mapped. This record shapes the next conversation, whatever it is, regardless of whether regulators approve the product in the near term. The filing establishes Kalshi's standing and creates a formal regulatory precedent for discussions about perpetual stock futures in federally regulated U.S. markets.
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