Judge Denies Halt on Stock Perpetual Futures, Questions CFTC Authority

A federal judge has denied an emergency bid to halt trading of single-stock perpetual futures on U.S.-regulated exchanges but found the CFTC likely overstepped its authority in approving them.

U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni ruled on November 3 that the Capital Markets Alliance Association, a group including Cboe and Citadel Securities, failed to show imminent harm but is likely to succeed in its claim that the CFTC lacks statutory authority. The judge wrote that perpetual contracts, by definition, do not provide for a “sale for future delivery” and therefore cannot be security futures under the CFTC’s purview.

The ruling allows products on Kalshi, Coinbase Derivatives, and Bitnomial to continue trading for now. Kalshi had already listed perps on stocks including Qualcomm and Costco with leverage up to 4.9x. The judge found the contracts “appear to satisfy the definition of a swap,” which would fall under SEC jurisdiction.

The case highlights a regulatory turf war with implications for crypto venues. Perpetuals are a core crypto derivatives product, and Kalshi’s earlier bitcoin perpetual approval is also under legal challenge by CME Group. The judge’s preliminary view that a contract with no expiration is not a future could influence broader regulatory classification debates.