Commodity Futures Trading Commission chair Michael Selig said the agency aims to launch “genuine professional” crypto perpetual futures in the US within about four weeks as part of a broader regulatory overhaul.
Speaking alongside Paul Atkins, Selig said the regulator is working to remove barriers that previously pushed perpetual futures activity offshore, pledging multiple policy announcements to formalise an onshore pathway.
The initiative forms part of “Project Crypto,” a joint SEC–CFTC effort that will also issue guidance on DeFi, prediction markets and tokenised collateral frameworks to clarify how novel digital asset products can operate under US law.
Selig argued that earlier regulatory approaches “failed to create a pathway” for onshore perpetuals, contributing to capital flight and leaving US markets reliant on fragmented liquidity and less standardised offshore products.
Under the proposed framework, the CFTC plans to define listing conditions for perpetuals and other derivatives, including margin, clearing and conduct safeguards, while potentially expanding the range of eligible tokenised collateral.
Market participants are now assessing whether regulated US-listed perps could draw institutional flow from offshore exchanges, particularly if platforms such as Coinbase expand their CFTC-registered derivatives offerings.
Bitcoin and major altcoins posted modest intraday gains as traders priced in expectations that onshoring perpetual volume could increase regulated futures open interest and strengthen links between supervised derivatives benchmarks and spot markets.
At the time of reporting, Bitcoin price was $68,117.03.