Coinbase Files CFTC Application for 60 US Single-Stock Perpetuals, Extending Bitcoin (BTC) Perp Model

Coinbase Files 60-Contract Perp Application

Coinbase has formally asked the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission for permission to list the country's first single-stock perpetual futures, a filing that would let American traders run round-the-clock long and short positions on major equities without owning the shares. The application, submitted by Coinbase Derivatives on Friday and logged on the CFTC's industry-filings database as filing No. 64236, covers an initial slate of roughly 50 to 60 single-name contracts, with Apple, Microsoft, Tesla and Nvidia among the named underlyings and a launch window pointed at later this year. The docket we checked shows the filing in pending status, with no approval timetable published; Coinbase's own announcement stops short of listing underlyings or dates, and the contract count surfaces through the filing record rather than the company's marketing copy. Perpetual futures, a contract structure popularized in the altcoin derivatives market, carry no expiry date — funding-rate payments replace the quarterly roll of conventional futures. The company says the product builds on its existing US perpetuals market, which has so far been limited to crypto underlyings. Coinbase already runs a comparable stock-perp product overseas, launched in March, supporting Apple, Nvidia and index contracts while explicitly excluding US users.

CFTC Proposal Reaches White House OIRA

The filing lands in the middle of a fast-moving regulatory week. On September 17, the CFTC sent its own crypto-market regulation proposal to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), where it is recorded at the 'Prerule' stage under RIN 3038-AF80 and tagged as a Dodd-Frank-related rulemaking. That move came two days after the CLARITY Act — the Senate bill that would draw the SEC-CFTC jurisdictional line for digital assets — failed to reach the 60 votes needed to open floor debate, falling 49-50 on September 15, with cross-party talks over conflict-of-interest rules for officials' crypto ventures among the sticking points. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig had already signaled the pivot: the day after the vote, he posted on X that the agency is “ready to issue regulation for this new financial frontier.” That posture traces back to August 20, when Selig told the agency's Innovation Advisory Council, per the CFTC's own press release, that he had directed staff to develop rules under existing authority — including the designated contract market (DCM) framework — in case a comprehensive market-structure law never passes. The proposal's specific statutory basis has not been made public.

Two Paths, Two Regulators

The SEC route runs in parallel — and the two differ in kind, not just in regulator. On September 17, the SEC announced a five-year “innovation exemption” for tokenized NMS stocks: qualifying platforms are temporarily carved out of the 1934 Exchange Act's “exchange” definition and may trade tokenized shares through permissioned automated market makers and the liquidity pools familiar from yield farming, provided token holders keep traditional share rights and issuers are notified before third-party tokenization. The agency had already proposed its own “Regulation Crypto Assets” framework in August. Coinbase, notably, is working both doors: on September 1, Coinbase Derivatives filed Form 1-N with the SEC to register as a national securities exchange for security futures, and the CFTC filing followed on the 18th. Rivals are moving too — Payward, Kraken's parent, is bringing Hyperliquid perps to US users via HIP-3, and Binance listed a TSLA perpetual with up to 5x leverage offshore in January 2025. Coinbase's crypto perps reach 50x leverage; whether stock contracts will mirror that, plus contract specs and settlement mechanics, is undisclosed. CFTC-supervised derivatives already span instruments from VIX-futures trackers like the UVXY ETF to crypto futures, so the product class is familiar regulatory ground. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

A Regulatory End-Run Takes Shape

Read together, the week's three moves describe a market routing around a stalled Congress: with the CLARITY Act blocked, the CFTC is pushing a rule through OIRA, the SEC is improvising with exemptions, and exchanges are filing products under whichever door opens first. Our reading of the OIRA record is that prerule-stage review leaves every substantive question open — statutory basis, scope, timeline. For an industry that has matured far beyond the initial coin offering era, the decisive variable is speed: whether Coinbase's pending No. 64236 clears review before the legislative route revives, as Senator Tillis's renewed cloture motion keeps alive. Traders weighing venues in this race can compare which platforms already offer regulated perps in our best crypto exchanges guide.