Kalshi has officially filed to offer perpetual futures tied to individual US stocks, joining a growing roster of major digital asset firms in a coordinated push to bring crypto-style financial derivatives directly into traditional equity markets.
The prominent prediction market and derivatives platform submitted its proposed rule change to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alongside a formal submission to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for approval. As of Friday, the CFTC has yet to give its final green light to the proposal, leaving the market awaiting regulatory validation.
Under the terms of the filing, the proposed contracts would feature no preset expiration date. To maintain economic balance and keep contract prices closely aligned with the underlying equities, the system would utilize periodic funding payments exchanged dynamically between long and short market positions. Kalshi has specified that these unique contracts would be formally treated as security futures products, ensuring they are cleared safely through its own CFTC-registered clearinghouse, Kalshi Klear.
This regulatory move arrives on the exact same day that crypto exchange heavyweight Coinbase submitted a separate, highly anticipated proposal aimed at offering perpetual futures tied to individual US stocks. Both companies are aggressively capitalizing on a market structure that has historically defined the digital asset space, seeking to translate the immense popularity of perpetual derivatives into mainstream traditional equities.
Kalshi is no stranger to the perpetual futures ecosystem, having already established a footing in the space. The platform currently offers crypto-tied perpetual futures in the United States, covering major digital assets including Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, and XRP. That product lineup was made possible after Kalshi secured official CFTC approval for its flagship Bitcoin perpetual contract earlier this year in May.
US Stock Perpetual Futures Race Expands
The race to capture the burgeoning single-stock perpetual futures market in the United States is rapidly expanding beyond Kalshi and Coinbase. Payward, the parent company of prominent crypto exchange Kraken, has also entered the fray by filing through its Bitnomial Exchange subsidiary to offer identical products, with a clear strategic roadmap to make them seamlessly available to US retail and institutional traders directly on Kraken.
According to public disclosures from Payward, the company intends to roll out perpetual futures initially targeting ten major US equities. This initial roster features some of the most heavily traded and culturally significant stocks in the global economy, including Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. Furthermore, Payward confirmed it is actively working toward establishing a robust 24/5 trading environment for these instruments, bridging the gap between traditional stock market hours and the perpetual nature of crypto trading.
This flurry of regulatory filings follows closely on the heels of a significant legislative development in Washington. Just days prior, the high-profile CLARITY Act failed to advance during a procedural vote in the US Senate, coming up short of the critical 60 votes required to move forward in the legislative process.
The legislative stall prompted immediate reactions from financial regulators. Just one day after the Senate vote, SEC Chair Paul Atkins stepped forward to address the regulatory landscape, asserting publicly that "with or without legislation," the regulatory agency would "act decisively" within the boundaries of its existing statutory authority. His stated goal is to provide much-needed regulatory clarity and operational certainty for American investors, market participants, and financial entrepreneurs alike as innovative products knock on the door of traditional markets.
As the SEC and the CFTC review these overlapping filings from Kalshi, Coinbase, Kraken’s Bitnomial, and other industry stakeholders, the boundaries separating traditional equity exchanges from crypto-native financial engineering continue to blur. Whether regulators will embrace these crypto-inspired instruments for mainstream stocks remains to be determined as the review process moves forward.
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