Coinbase, Kraken and Trading Firms Back CFTC in Equity Perps Suit

Six firms — Coinbase, Kalshi, Kraken parent Payward, DRW Holdings, Jump Trading and Paradigm — asked a federal court on Monday for permission to file an amicus brief (a friend-of-the-court filing by non-parties) defending the CFTC's authority to regulate single-stock perpetual futures in the United States.

The filing lands one week after the Capital Markets Alliance, an industry association whose members include Cboe and Citadel Securities, sued to overturn the CFTC's approval of the products. The outcome will determine whether crypto-native venues can keep a path open to list equity perps onshore.

What is actually at stake?

Perpetual futures, known in the market as perps, are derivatives that let traders speculate on an asset's price without holding the underlying instrument. Unlike traditional futures, they carry no expiration date. That single design feature is the crux of the legal fight.

According to the Monday filing, Coinbase, Kalshi and Payward submitted applications to the CFTC to list equity perps tied to U.S. stocks, and the agency deemed those applications approved on Nov. 2. A court decision upholding the approvals would preserve those firms' ability to offer or expand the products domestically. A decision against the CFTC would pull the rug out.

The petitioners frame the case around jurisdictional lines drawn by Congress, not around the merits of the products themselves.

How does the CMA challenge the approvals?

The Capital Markets Alliance argues that because equity perps do not expire on a set date, they should not be treated as futures at all. Instead, the association classifies them as security-based swaps — instruments that cannot be listed on CFTC-regulated exchanges. On that reading, the CFTC overstepped the Securities and Exchange Commission's authority when it deemed the products approved.

The claim, in other words, is that the CFTC approved something it had no power to approve. The CMA's membership — exchange operator Cboe and market maker Citadel Securities among them — sits squarely in the traditional listed-futures ecosystem that equity perps would compete with.

The crypto firms contest both the classification and the suggestion that the SEC was bypassed.

What do the crypto firms argue?

The amici push back on the process argument directly, asserting that the SEC was, in their words, "at the table from the very start" of the regulatory process. "The agencies jointly sought public comment on whether perpetual contracts should be classified as security futures," the Monday filing said.

Molly Abraham, general counsel of Coinbase, wrote on X that under the Commodity Exchange Act and the securities futures framework Congress established in 2000, security futures products are not swaps. That statutory distinction, if the court accepts it, undercuts the CMA's core reclassification theory.

Coinbase Vice Chairman Ryan VanGrack pointed to the offshore market as an empirical baseline. Global markets are already trading equity perps, he noted.

"U.S. investors deserve access to these markets under the strong consumer protections and joint oversight of the CFTC and SEC," VanGrack said. "The U.S. should lead, not cede, this space."

Mandate versus assertion

Two facts are established: the CFTC deemed the three firms' applications approved on Nov. 2, and the six companies have now moved for leave to file in the CMA case. Everything else — whether perps are swaps, whether the SEC was properly involved, whether offshore activity justifies onshore access — remains contested assertion pending the court's ruling.

For desks tracking the product pipeline, the procedural calendar is the watch item. The court must first grant leave for the amicus brief before the six firms' arguments enter the record, and the underlying suit to overturn the approvals proceeds on its own track.

A ruling that upholds the Nov. 2 approvals keeps the onshore listing path open for Coinbase, Kalshi and Payward; a ruling for the CMA would send equity perps back into a jurisdictional gray zone between the two regulators.