Nov 10, 2026, 12:07 p.m. EST
2 min read
Summary
- The digital asset sector pushed back in a judicial dispute designed to protect the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s initiative enabling single-stock perpetual futures contracts domestically — a goal shared by enterprises such as Coinbase and Kalshi.
- Conventional brokerage houses, however, have supported a legal challenge against the CFTC aiming to block U.S. trading of perps linked to individual equities, arguing in court that they should instead be classified as securities-based swaps regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Leading cryptocurrency and prediction market companies have aligned themselves squarely with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission as it presents its legal defense maintaining that perpetual futures tied to individual equities are not swaps, despite a recent lawsuit claiming otherwise.
The CFTC attempted to establish a new framework for single-stock perps — mirroring its actions months prior regarding crypto perps — prompting legacy financial institutions to file an immediate lawsuit to halt the initiative. Although the complaint alleged that the regulator was exceeding its jurisdiction and misclassifying these perps as futures rather than swaps, the most recent legal filings originate from firms such as Coinbase, Kraken, and Kalshi, which maintain that the instruments share close ties with security futures and belong under the same regulatory framework.
The Capital Markets Alliance — a newly formed entity supported by Citadel Securities, Cboe, and other conventional financial sector participants — sued the regulatory body for an emergency injunction, proceeding from the position that single-stock perps (instruments lacking an expiration date that allow traders to speculate indefinitely on an equity’s price direction) meet the criteria of securities-based swaps under the purview of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The fresh legal memorandum submitted late Monday to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York argues that the stock perp represents an improvement over traditional stock futures, noting that the alliance’s traditional finance members “could offer that better product themselves; instead, CMAA sued and sought emergency relief to keep it off the market.”
The corporate participants — which also include Paradigm, DRW Holdings, and Jump Trading — emphasized that the SEC has cooperated with the CFTC’s initiatives and is not being bypassed in a jurisdictional dispute.
“The question, then, is not whether equity perpetuals resemble security-based swaps, but whether they are security futures — and they are,” the companies asserted, adding that “both agencies Congress charged with regulating security futures — the CFTC and the SEC — have treated them that way.”
A federal judge initially permitted trading to proceed within the CMA lawsuit while indicating she found merit in the organization’s arguments regarding regulatory overreach.
Financial regulators operating under President Donald Trump’s administration have received instructions to bring the flourishing offshore perpetuals market onshore into the United States. The CFTC previously executed a similar approach for crypto perps, although derivatives powerhouse CME Group initiated legal action against that decision on parallel grounds, contending those instruments should more appropriately be categorized as swaps rather than futures.
Read More: U.S. CFTC rebuffs CME legal stance in consequential fight over perpetual futures
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2026/11/10/crypto-teams-up-with-u-s-government-to-defend-stock-perps-in-legal-fight.
