CFTC approves first U.S. bitcoin perpetual futures for Kalshi and Coinbase
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Thursday, May 28 approved bitcoin perpetual futures for listing at Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated prediction market and event-contract exchange, and issued a no-action position allowing Coinbase to offer the product. The approvals mark the first U.S. regulatory green light for bitcoin perpetual futures on regulated domestic exchanges, bringing a derivatives structure popular offshore into a CFTC-compliant framework. Kalshi and Coinbase announced their partnership on Friday, May 29 to introduce the products for U.S. investors, combining Coinbase's crypto exchange infrastructure with Kalshi's regulatory status as a Designated Contract Market. Kalshi officially launched the bitcoin perpetual contracts on Tuesday, June 2, with CEO Tarek Mansour framing the move as closing a gap that had forced traders offshore. Following the bitcoin approval, Kalshi filed with the CFTC to list perpetual futures on 12 additional crypto assets including Ethereum, XRP, Solana, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, Stellar, and six other tokens.
Kalshi's rush to file 12 altcoin perpetual futures within days of launch pressures the CFTC to either establish a rapid-fire crypto derivatives precedent or slow-walk approvals, with Coinbase's parallel no-action relief offering a template competitors will try to replicate. Any bottleneck at the agency directly advantages offshore perp markets still siphoning U.S. order flow.
Kalshi's fourth major CFTC product approval in five days — bitcoin perps, altcoin perps, venue pairing with Coinbase's derivatives exchange, and now 24/7 trading infrastructure — deepens its pivot from event contracts into full crypto derivatives stack alongside Polymarket and Robinhood.