SGX Wins CFTC Approval to Open Its Bitcoin (BTC) Perpetual Futures to US Institutions

CFTC Authorization Under Regulation 48.10

Singapore Exchange (SGX) has secured authorization from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to open its Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether perpetual futures directly to eligible US institutional investors, dismantling a barrier that kept American trading firms away from the contracts since their debut. The clearance was granted under Regulation 48.10, the rule the CFTC uses to let a recognized Foreign Board of Trade — an overseas exchange under its supervision — give qualifying US participants direct access to its electronic trading system. In practical terms, SGX can extend its existing order books to American institutions without creating separate US listings or registering the Singapore venue as a domestic exchange. KC Lam, head of crypto derivatives at SGX Group, called the decision an important milestone that connects American traditional-finance desks with Asian liquidity pools, and said the regulatory route helps establish crypto derivatives as a regulated asset class. Previously, US participants could not trade these contracts; now they can. The affected products are the exchange's flagship Bitcoin perpetual futures, ticker BTP, and its Ether equivalent, ETP — both expiry-free contracts live since late November 2025. The approval lands in a US market where regulated perpetuals are quickly taking shape. In May, the CFTC approved the first regulated Bitcoin (BTC) perpetual for listing on a domestic exchange; Kraken launched perpetual futures in June through its CFTC-regulated derivatives business Bitnomial; and Coinbase Financial Markets secured a route letting eligible US institutions reach global crypto derivatives, initially via contracts listed on Deribit. SGX's path is distinct: rather than building a new onshore product, it is extending direct institutional access to contracts already trading on its Singapore market, under US regulatory oversight.

$5.8 Billion Volume, Margin Calls Over Auto-Liquidations

Exchange data shows the two contracts have generated $5.8 billion in cumulative turnover — roughly 400,000 lots — since launching in late November 2025. Average daily volume across the pair stood at 1,300 lots, or about $19 million, as of August, with Bitcoin representing 83% of average daily volume since inception and 66% of outstanding open interest. The heaviest single session reached 11,500 lots, equivalent to $145 million in notional value. American participation will not appear in those figures immediately: new institutional clients are brought in through clearing members and must complete know-your-customer checks, fund their accounts and establish API connectivity, a process SGX says typically takes two to four weeks regardless of jurisdiction. Traders currently use the contracts for directional macro positions, including hedges against currency debasement — the concern that has also driven strategic Bitcoin reserve allocations by sovereigns and corporates, and a theme kept alive by fiscal operations such as the US Treasury's $6 billion long-bond buyback that disappointed markets — alongside cash-and-carry strategies capturing funding-rate and price differentials across venues. Structurally, the products diverge sharply from crypto-native perpetuals. Although expiry-free, SGX relies on margin calls and top-up collateral rather than the automatic liquidation engines standard on offshore crypto exchanges, a framework Lam says prevents involuntary position closures during volatility spikes. The exchange also separates trading and clearing, routing trades through clearing members that act as an intermediate risk buffer and mirror traditional futures infrastructure. Stablecoins are excluded as collateral because they can lose their peg during turbulent periods, and the contracts settle against benchmarks co-developed with an outside index provider under European Union Benchmark Regulation oversight, per Mohit Baheti, head of iEdge Indices at SGX Group. Next, SGX plans dated Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether futures and options; Lam said building that infrastructure is the main technical lift, after which adding other major cryptocurrencies should resemble introducing any additional futures contract. Institutions weighing venues for regulated derivatives exposure can compare options in our guide to the best crypto exchanges. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bybit.

Beyond the authorization itself, the exchange is preparing its US clearing members to onboard the first wave of American clients, signaling that operational readiness is advancing alongside the regulatory green light. The approval also lands against a broader 2026 regulatory shift at the CFTC, which moved this year to clarify how crypto-based perpetual contracts should be treated. In May, the agency stated that such products could qualify as futures under specified conditions, while emphasizing that each contract would be assessed on the basis of its structure rather than its label alone. That case-by-case approach gives overseas venues like SGX a defined, if demanding, template for extending expiry-free products to US participants, and it frames the Singapore exchange's Regulation 48.10 clearance as part of a wider supervisory opening rather than a one-off exception.

The legislative backdrop to the CFTC's supervisory opening is also shifting: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged senators on Wednesday to advance the CLARITY Act, warning that failure would send a "troubling signal" about US leadership in digital assets. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has filed cloture on the motion to proceed, with a procedural vote scheduled for Sept. 15 requiring 60 votes — meaning Republicans, holding 53 seats, need at least seven from Democrats or independents. The bill would set statutory boundaries between SEC and CFTC jurisdiction over crypto assets, with outstanding disputes covering stablecoin rewards, ethics rules, illicit finance and protections for non-custodial software developers. The National Sheriffs' Association dropped its opposition to neutral on Sept. 3, though Galaxy Digital has cut its estimated odds of 2026 passage to 10%, down from 75% in May, citing the shrinking Senate calendar.

The CLARITY Act's timeline is tightening around SGX's regulatory window: per the Senate's legislative calendar, lawmakers return from August recess on Monday, Sept. 14, meaning a procedural breakthrough could put the bill on the floor in the second half of the month. The measure cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May but has stalled at full-chamber level, with most Democrats objecting to its stablecoin yield provisions as a regulatory arbitrage against banks, traditional banking groups lobbying against it, and moderate Republicans seeking revisions. Digital asset investment bank Galaxy has progressively cut its odds of 2026 passage from 75% on May 22 to 60% in mid-July to 10% this month, while Senator Cynthia Lummis has warned that failure this year could push comprehensive crypto market-structure legislation back to 2030, a delay that would leave cross-border venues like SGX operating amid continued jurisdictional uncertainty.

The legislative backdrop shifted again this week: Senate Republicans have circulated a revised 630-page draft of the CLARITY Act ahead of the Sept. 15 cloture vote, per reporting by journalist Brendan Pedersen. The updated text distinguishes genuinely decentralized protocols from "non-decentralized finance trading protocols," clarifies that participation in decentralized governance or an incident-response security council does not itself constitute control, narrows parts of the DeFi regime to digital-commodity cash and spot markets, and strengthens protections for credit unions alongside technical changes to the GENIUS Act on tokenized products. Notably, the draft remains a Republican proposal rather than a bipartisan deal — one Democratic aide called the unresolved ethics dispute the "biggest stumbling block by far," saying the proposal "does nothing to resolve those concerns" — leaving Republicans still short of the support needed to open debate.

(as of 11:21 UTC) The deeper arc is convergence: regulated perpetual futures are moving from offshore novelty to mainstream US institutional infrastructure, and SGX's authorization adds a cross-border leg to that buildout. With an onshore path, Kraken's Bitnomial and Coinbase's Deribit route all operating, American desks can now choose between domestic products and direct access to Asian liquidity — and the Singapore venue's $5.8 billion track record gives the latter a credible anchor. Institutions that historically concentrated size on offshore venues, effectively the crypto whale cohort of the perpetuals market, gain a compliant alternative, while spot Bitcoin ETF products continue handling cash-market exposure. With spot having reclaimed the $78,000 area in recent sessions, per COINOTAG's earlier Bitcoin price coverage, venue depth rather than headlines will decide where institutional perpetual volume settles. For broader Bitcoin market coverage, COINOTAG tracks these flows as they develop.