The Hyperliquid Policy Center claimed that CME Group, the largest derivatives marketplace on the planet, is suppressing innovation and called upon a court to throw out the exchange’s legal action against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
On Wednesday, HPC submitted an amicus brief within the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia backing the CFTC after CME launched a lawsuit against the federal regulator in June regarding its authorization of perpetual futures trading inside the U.S.
Within its filing, HPC—which received representation from Elizabeth Prelogar, who functioned as Solicitor General during the Biden administration spanning 2021 to 2025—argues that this litigation could carry far-reaching ramifications.
“Once a titan of innovation, CME now advances a novel theory of standing under which an incumbent exchange is injured whenever its regulator permits a new product that it chooses not to offer,” Prelogar stated. “If CME prevails, every product that the CFTC approves will invite litigation from incumbents who prefer the status quo, and the pace of progress in the U.S. futures markets will slow to a crawl.”
Fight over perps
Perpetuals function as a category of futures contract lacking any expiration date, enabling individuals to speculate on asset price fluctuations without holding the underlying asset directly. They have surged in popularity across cryptocurrency derivatives trading, particularly on the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid (HYPE), which President Donald Trump noted the CFTC is working to integrate onshore in the United States in a “fully compliant and legal fashion.”
The CFTC granted approval for the initial perpetual futures products to Kalshi and Coinbase during the previous month, clearing the path for these instruments to trade domestically in the U.S. for the first time.
Throughout its initial complaint, CME Group argued that perpetual contracts would directly rival its own products and inflict financial harm upon CME. Chief Executive Officer Terrence Duffy has similarly expressed critical views regarding perpetual futures, describing them as a “disaster waiting to happen” while asserting that perpetual futures ought to be categorized as swaps under the Dodd-Frank Act, a piece of federal financial oversight legislation enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Conversely, HPC contends that CME possesses no legal standing regarding competition and alleged injury.
“The CFTC order it challenges does nothing of the kind,” HPC noted.
“It enlarged the market rather than dividing it, opening exchanges to new market participants who would not have traded in dated futures contracts. And it added no new competitors to the marketplace, because Kalshi has been a CFTC-regulated exchange since 2020.”
Originally published at https://www.theblock.co/news/regulation/2026-09-09-hyperliquid-policy-center-backs-cftc-fight-perpetual-futures-asks-court-drop-cme-case-414046.
