Coinbase has asked the US securities regulator SEC to approve stock perpetuals that would trade around the clock. However, before any US launch the exchange also needs sign-off from the futures regulator CFTC.
Stock perpetuals are futures contracts without an expiration date. Traders use them to bet on the price movement of a share without owning the stock itself. The position also requires no rollover. Such contracts run around the clock, not only during regular market hours. Trading would therefore be possible on weekends as well. Coinbase filed the so-called notice registration form with the agency in late August. Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad confirmed the step in early September on X. Moreover, the exchange has already offered the product since March 2026, though exclusively for users outside the US. Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Amazon serve as the underlyings there.
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The dual approval path across SEC and CFTC
The document filed is a notice registration form, through which the exchange informs the regulator about the listing. The SEC reviews the securities element, the CFTC the futures element. So far the company has not disclosed which form number and which rulebook sit behind it. Shirzad made the filing public in early September, after it had reached the SEC. Yet the securities regulator's approval alone is not enough for trading to start.
Perpetuals are derivatives, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversees the US futures market. Therefore Coinbase needs a green light from the CFTC on top of an SEC approval. Only then may US clients trade the contracts. The timeline thus rests on two independent processes. Coinbase has named a date for neither of them. The securities regulator holds jurisdiction because single stocks count as securities. Consequently a derivative on a single name follows the same regime. Coinbase has held a CFTC approval for crypto perpetuals since May 2026. That approval does not cover stocks as underlyings. Without both clearances, Coinbase cannot offer the product to US clients. In addition, Shirzad pointed to the demand outside the US that the company has served itself since the spring.
"Equity perps have demonstrated demand internationally, and we look forward to the prospect of a regulated access route for US investors." - Faryar Shirzad, Chief Policy Officer, Coinbase
Stock perpetuals have run outside the US since March
The application is not a new product but the extension of a running business into the home market. Since March 2026 the exchange has offered perpetual futures on single stocks, initially only for users outside the US. Four underlyings are available there: Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Amazon. All four names come from the US technology sector. The technical and operational infrastructure therefore already exists. What remains open is essentially regulatory access. Additionally, the run of applications falls into a phase in which the CFTC looks more favorably on 24/7 trading.
The regulator prepared that access step by step. In May 2026 the CFTC approved Bitcoin perpetual futures for the US market at staff level for the first time. Coinbase and the futures exchange KalshiEX received their clearances at the same time. Before that, no approval of this kind existed in the US. As a result the regulator allowed open-ended futures contracts onshore for the first time. That step covered crypto underlyings only.
One month later the agency widened the frame. In June 2026 it published a request for comment on perpetuals on crude oil and on 24/7 trading in general. That put more than a single product up for discussion: the trading hours of the entire regulated futures market. Stock perpetuals from Coinbase thus fit into this opening. Within four months the frame moved from crypto underlyings through commodities to single stocks.
Kalshi takes the same direction through the index route
Coinbase is not competing alone for the new product category. Kalshi filed an application with the CFTC on 18 August 2026 for perpetuals on a stock index. The underlying is the MerQube U.S. Large Cap Index, a counterpart to the S&P 500. Large-cap US stocks make up the index. The platform also applied for perpetuals on copper. Copper, as a commodity, likewise falls under CFTC jurisdiction. Both contracts target classic TradFi underlyings instead of cryptocurrencies.
The decisive difference lies in the approval path. Kalshi's index application needs no SEC clearance, because broadly diversified stock baskets sit with the CFTC in regulatory terms. Coinbase, however, must first pass the securities regulator. Kalshi runs through one process, Coinbase through two. Economically both products serve the same function: a position on US equity risk, tradable around the clock.
Both providers come from the same direction. Originally Kalshi and Coinbase held only CFTC clearances for crypto perpetuals, before they expanded into stocks, indices and commodities. The competition for 24/7 derivatives is thus shifting from crypto underlyings into the core business of the established futures exchanges.
Hyperliquid dominates the market outside US regulation
The bulk of global perpetuals trading traditionally runs outside US regulation. That volume sits above all with crypto-native and decentralized platforms, led by Hyperliquid. Hyperliquid is a decentralized trading platform for perpetuals without a central operator. Regulated US platforms could not serve this segment at all until the CFTC acted. That first approval came in May 2026. Now the regulated US providers are playing for exactly that volume.
Politics addresses this route openly. At the White House in August 2026, President Donald Trump addressed the platform directly. CFTC Chair Michael Selig was working to bring Hyperliquid onshore in the US, he said. That move should be fully compliant. At the same time, Hyperliquid Labs is reportedly in talks with Payward about a regulated US market entry. Payward is the parent company of Kraken. So the offshore side is moving toward US authorization as well.
For Coinbase, the outcome of both processes will decide its position in a market that is currently rearranging itself. If approval comes, the exchange can carry an internationally tested product into the world's largest stock market. If it does not, other platforms will keep serving the demand, either through the index route or from offshore. Two regulators will finally decide on the timing, not the company.
