CFTC Greenlights First U.S. Bitcoin Perpetuals as Wintermute, ICE and Kalshi Reshape Derivatives

Crypto News

Wintermute, the London-based algorithmic trading firm that processes more than $3.5 trillion in annual volume, has extended its market-making operations into prediction markets, the company confirmed on Friday. The firm is now quoting continuous two-sided prices on event contracts at leading venues that collectively handle north of $20 billion in monthly volume. Jake Ostrovskis, head of OTC trading, said sustained two-sided depth is what converts prediction venues into reliable real-time probability engines. The move follows Jump Trading's reported market-making arrangements with Polymarket and Kalshi and Galaxy Digital's exploratory talks, signalling that institutional liquidity providers now view event contracts as a legitimate extension of digital-asset infrastructure built on stablecoins and public blockchain rails.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has formally cleared the path for U.S. firms to list crypto perpetual futures, issuing its first approval to a registered exchange to trade Bitcoin perpetuals. The unnamed venue will offer contracts with no fixed expiration, settled through periodic funding-rate payments designed to track spot prices. CFTC Chairman Mike Selig described perps as a foundational risk-management and price-discovery instrument that had been pushed offshore by previous regulators. The decision arrives days after President Donald Trump publicly accused prior administrations of driving perpetual trading and innovation out of the country, framing the new framework as a competitive reset for American venues.

Selig elaborated on the policy rationale, calling the approval a historic step toward bringing one of the deepest segments of the crypto market inside U.S. supervision. He argued that until now, fragmented liquidity across foreign platforms left American firms competitively disadvantaged and barred domestic participants from a tool first theorized by Nobel laureate Robert Shiller in 1992. The new framework, he said, allows the agency to manage leverage, volatility and systemic risk onshore rather than displace them to unregulated venues. The shift positions the CFTC alongside spot Bitcoin ETFs as a second major regulated access route for U.S. capital into derivatives that previously traded almost exclusively overseas.

An unusual case underscored how irrational order flow can become in a thin altcoin market: NexFundAI, an ERC-20 token built by the FBI in 2024 as a honeypot to identify wash-trading service providers, surged roughly 19x after trader Evan Luthra publicly labeled it a federal sting on May 21, 2026. The token, originally marketed with a fabricated whitepaper promising AI-driven yields, had previously caused enough retail losses that the bureau set up a restitution portal. Court filings outlined how contracted market makers manufactured $1 million in daily volume for $200 per session, a reminder that liquidity manipulation persists despite enforcement actions targeting the wash-trading ecosystem.

Intercontinental Exchange, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, is lobbying regulators to allow regulated venues to offer 24/7 on-chain perpetual contracts, CEO Jeffrey Sprecher said this week at a Bernstein conference. Sprecher argued the activity is already migrating to platforms such as Hyperliquid and that regulators are blocking incumbents from competing on a level playing field. He disclosed exploratory talks with Hyperliquid about TradFi-crypto integration and praised the protocol's growth, joking it was bigger than Nasdaq with just 11 employees. The remarks follow ICE's $25 billion investment in OKX in March and a planned launch of perpetuals tied to Brent and WTI crude benchmarks.

Kalshi has asked a federal court to block Minnesota from enforcing the country's first state-level prediction market ban, which would make operating an event-contract platform a felony beginning August 1. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, mirrors a parallel suit already brought by the Department of Justice and the CFTC against Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison. Kalshi argues the statute violates the Supremacy Clause because event contracts fall under exclusive federal jurisdiction. The litigation joins five other CFTC-led suits against states attempting to treat prediction platforms as gambling operators, intensifying a federal-state showdown over the sector's regulatory home.

The week's developments trace a single thematic arc: U.S. policy is actively repatriating derivative liquidity that the previous regulatory regime pushed offshore. The CFTC's perpetuals framework, ICE's lobbying for 24/7 on-chain venues, Wintermute's institutional liquidity push into event contracts, and Washington's coordinated defence of Kalshi against state bans all point toward an aggressive consolidation of crypto market structure under federal oversight. Even the NexFundAI episode, with its echoes of earlier wash-trading enforcement, underscores how the next regulatory chapter is less about prohibition and more about standardizing leverage, custody and surveillance. The dominant narrative this cycle is unmistakably onshoring — bringing perps, prediction markets and institutional flow back inside the American regulatory perimeter.