CFTC Opens Trading in Single-Stock Perpetual Contracts for the First Time

Key Facts

On November 3, 2026, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig announced that perpetual futures on individual stocks could begin trading for the first time through eligible contract markets also registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The announcement creates a regulatory path for these products in the United States, subject to oversight by both agencies. Selig said the regulated framework gives U.S. investors and traders access to them "instead of having to turn to offshore platforms, often unregulated." The path is limited to designated contract markets registered with the CFTC and also registered with the SEC as national securities exchanges with a notice for trading security futures products. The announcement did not name specific platforms or the stocks that would be available when trading begins.

The CFTC said the contracts were deemed certified under Regulation 40.3 as security futures products. This places them under the Commodity Exchange Act and federal securities laws, with both agencies’ oversight frameworks applying. Selig linked the move to the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 and the memorandum of understanding between the CFTC and SEC. He said regulatory uncertainty had kept these products in a gray area, while the new path relies on existing frameworks to determine how they are treated. The announcement thus opens a route to trading through eligible markets, while the details of actual listings remain subject to the entities that offer the contracts.

Perpetual contracts differ from traditional futures in that they have no expiration date and often use leverage. CoinDesk reported that leverage can magnify gains and losses, making the product’s features central to assessing its risks. The publication said trading volume in perpetual contracts exceeded $630 billion during the previous month, citing DeFiLlama data. This reflects expanding activity in this type of derivative before individual-stock contracts enter a regulated U.S. path. However, the cited volume is for perpetual contracts generally and does not indicate expected trading in stocks or products that may be listed later.

The announcement’s connection to the HYPE token should be separated from the regulatory step concerning stock contracts. EL7 data show the token closed at $84.09 on November 2, then at $85.33 on November 3, 2026. But these daily closes do not establish the timing of the move during the session or prove a link to the CFTC announcement. The announcement also did not name Hyperliquid or specify any platforms or assets that would list the products at launch. The announcement therefore does not establish that the platform or token is directly covered by the new path, even as HYPE features in the broader perpetual-contract market.

The announcement followed other regulatory steps involving perpetual contracts, but those did not mean stock products had begun trading. On May 29, 2026, the CFTC issued an order approving Kalshi’s BTCPERP contract, linked to the spot price of Bitcoin, as a futures contract. On October 8, the CFTC’s product registry recorded CDNA’s HYPE Perpetual Futures Contract as a certified futures contract. These steps concern specific contracts, while the November 3 announcement addressed the possibility of beginning to trade perpetual contracts on individual stocks in eligible markets. The precedents show that perpetual contracts had featured in the agency’s filings before the announcement on stock markets.

The classification of perpetual contracts on stocks had drawn regulatory debate before the announcement. In a letter to the SEC dated October 14, Cboe objected to classifying them as security futures products and called for rule changes to be resubmitted for the agency’s review. Cboe said the contracts do not meet the definition of a security futures contract, in its view, because they do not provide for future delivery. It also noted that the SEC can, within 60 days of the CFTC’s approval of each proposed rule change and after consulting with it, ask the market to resubmit it. The objection puts classification and subsequent oversight among the issues that may accompany implementation of the path, without changing what Selig announced about the possibility of trading beginning in eligible markets.