Two prominent US derivatives platforms are trying to launch a crypto-born trading product that will help stock investors. On Friday, Kalshi and Coinbase each asked regulators for permission to list perpetual futures tied to individual American equities.
Interestingly, both requests arrived just days after the CLARITY Act failed to advance in the US Senate on September 15.
Kalshi’s proposal is moving through two agencies. The prediction market filed a proposed rule change with the Securities and Exchange Commission and also submitted it to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for approval. The CFTC has not yet given its go-ahead. If the contracts launch, they would be treated as security futures products and cleared by Kalshi Klear, the company’s CFTC-registered clearinghouse.
Coinbase filed its own proposal on the same day. Its Coinbase Derivatives exchange asked the CFTC to approve perpetual futures on individual US stocks. “Single stock perps are coming to America,” Coinbase said in a post on X on Friday morning.
Perpetual futures are contracts with no expiration date, and they have long been a staple of crypto trading. Both companies now want to apply that model to traditional equities, which would put them in direct competition over a new segment of the market.
kalshi is no newcomer to the format. US customers can already trade its perpetual futures on cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP). That lineup traces back to May, when the CFTC approved the firm’s Bitcoin perpetual contract.
Coinbase’s request is with the CFTC, while Kalshi’s filing is still waiting on that agency’s approval and has also gone to the SEC.
