On September 18, 2026, Kalshi, Coinbase Derivatives and Kraken's Bitnomial Exchange filed SEC rules to list perpetual futures on stocks including Apple (AAPL), Tesla (TSLA) and Nvidia (NVDA), extending the CFTC framework that approved Kalshi's Bitcoin (BTC) perpetual future on May 29, 2026. Coinbase Global (COIN) shares rose 11.7% to $194.25 on September 19.
Why Are Kalshi, Coinbase and Kraken Filing for Stock Perpetuals?
| Date | What happened | Market effect |
|---|---|---|
| May 29, 2026 | CFTC approves Kalshi's Bitcoin perpetual future | Sets the legal template |
| June 18, 2026 | CME sues CFTC, calls perps unregistered swaps | Case 1:26-cv-02157 filed in D.D.C. |
| Sept 2, 2026 | CFTC moves to dismiss CME's suit | Case remains pending |
| Sept 18, 2026 | Kalshi, Coinbase, Bitnomial file stock-perp rules | COIN jumps 11.7% next day |
All three filings landed with the SEC on the same day. KalshiEX's SR-KalshiEX-2026-02 and Coinbase Derivatives' SR-COIN-2026-002 took immediate effect; Bitnomial's SR-BTNL-2026-001 was filed for standard notice-and-comment review. Each is a security futures product, cash-settled and with no fixed expiration date, cleared through a registered clearinghouse rather than through traditional futures delivery.
Coinbase's filing adds Chapter 12 to its rulebook: contracts trade Sunday 8:00pm ET through Friday 5:00pm ET, carry a 200,000-contract position limit, and require underlying stocks to hold at least $100 billion in market capitalization and $450 million in six-month average daily volume to list, dropping to $50 billion and $200 million to stay listed. Coinbase clears the contracts through Nodal Clear. Kalshi's contracts clear through Kalshi Klear and use periodic funding payments to keep the perpetual price tied to the underlying stock, the same mechanism crypto perpetual futures use. Bitnomial, trading as Kraken in the US, is starting with ten names including Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon, according to Cryptonomist's September 20 report. Coinbase's chief policy officer, Faryar Shirzad, said in the filing that international demand for equity perpetuals is already established and the company wants a regulated US venue for it.
Where Analysts Disagree
CME Group, the incumbent futures exchange, argues the CFTC got the legal classification wrong. CME Chairman Terry Duffy has said when two parties exchange payments to each other, that is deemed a swap, and CME's lawsuit, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. v. Selig, contends perpetuals, which never expire and pass funding payments between longs and shorts, meet the legal definition of a swap rather than a future, so they should have gone through swap registration and margin rules instead of the CFTC's case-by-case futures approvals.
The CFTC disagrees and, in its September 2 motion to dismiss, called the suit "much ado about nothing," arguing CME lacks standing to challenge an approval it was not party to. Jake Chervinsky, chief executive of the Hyperliquid Policy Center, went further, calling it unbelievably unusual to see the largest exchange in America attacking its own regulator. CFTC Chairman Mike Selig has defended the case-by-case approval process as a foundational tool for price discovery, a framing he used when approving Kalshi's Bitcoin contract in May. The case, 1:26-cv-02157, is before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, with the CFTC's dismissal motion still pending.
Why It Matters
The legal question at the center of the CME suit, whether a funding-rate contract with no expiration is a future or a swap, decides more than stock perpetuals. It is the same structure behind every crypto perpetual future, including the Bitcoin and Ether contracts already trading on US-regulated venues. If CME wins and perpetuals are reclassified as swaps, existing crypto perpetual futures could face swap-market registration, margin and reporting rules that do not apply to futures, raising the cost of offering them onshore. If the CFTC's approach holds, the case-by-case pathway that took Bitcoin perpetuals from a single approval in May to three exchanges filing for equity perpetuals in September becomes a repeatable template, one that CME itself is fighting in court rather than competing against directly.
What to Watch
Three SEC dockets are now open for public comment for 21 days after Federal Register publication: SR-KalshiEX-2026-02, SR-BTNL-2026-001 and SR-COIN-2026-002. Coinbase's filing states the CFTC has a review window on new product filings, extendable for complex products, which points to a decision window opening in early November 2026. In the CME litigation, watch for Judge Kollar-Kotelly's ruling on the CFTC's motion to dismiss in case 1:26-cv-02157, which will determine whether the suit proceeds to discovery or ends there. A ruling against the CFTC would be the first legal setback for the onshore perpetual futures framework since Kalshi's Bitcoin approval in May.
Bottom Line
- Kalshi, Coinbase Derivatives and Bitnomial each filed SEC rules on September 18, 2026 to list perpetual futures on individual US stocks such as Apple, Tesla and Nvidia.
- The filings reuse the CFTC framework first applied to Kalshi's Bitcoin perpetual future, approved May 29, 2026.
- CME Group's lawsuit, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. v. Selig (1:26-cv-02157, D.D.C.), remains pending after the CFTC moved to dismiss it on September 2, 2026.
- Coinbase Global shares rose 11.7% to $194.25 on September 19, 2026, the day after its filing.
Research and analysis only. Nothing here is financial advice or a recommendation to trade. Markets carry risk; decisions are your own.