North American Derivatives Exchange, the U.S.-regulated derivatives venue owned by Crypto.com, has registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission to list security futures products, opening a route for single-stock futures to reach the U.S. market. The registration became effective on Sept. 14, according to the company’s filing through OG.com.
The SEC acknowledged the notice registration on Sept. 16, the company said. Nadex is already registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as both a designated contract market and a derivatives clearing organization, placing it within the two-agency framework that governs U.S. security futures.
The move gives Nadex a regulatory foothold in a market that has historically remained small and tightly restricted in the United States. Single-stock futures are contracts tied to the price of an individual publicly traded company rather than an index, commodity or cryptocurrency. They can offer leveraged exposure to a stock’s movement without requiring a trader to buy or sell the underlying shares directly.
Nadex targets a regulated path for equity derivatives
Security futures occupy an unusual position in U.S. markets because they fall under joint SEC and CFTC oversight. That structure distinguishes them from conventional stock options, which are primarily securities products, and from many commodity futures, which sit principally under the CFTC.
Nadex’s registration does not mean that every proposed contract will automatically begin trading. The venue would still need to establish product specifications and meet the applicable requirements for listing and clearing. Yet the effective registration provides a necessary regulatory step for a platform seeking to offer futures linked to individual U.S. stocks.
Crypto.com Chief Executive Officer Kris Marszalek said the company is also working with the SEC and CFTC on plans to offer single-stock perpetual futures in the United States. Perpetual futures, often called perps, are derivatives contracts without a set expiry date. They are widely used in offshore cryptocurrency markets but are largely unavailable to U.S. retail participants in an equity format.
A U.S.-listed perpetual tied to individual equities would test whether the country’s derivatives framework can accommodate a product format built for continuous trading. Traditional futures contracts normally expire on a stated date, requiring traders to close or roll their positions. Perpetual contracts use mechanisms such as periodic funding payments to keep their market price near that of the referenced asset.
Those mechanics can make perps easier to maintain over longer periods, but they also raise questions about leverage, overnight liquidity and the speed at which losses can accumulate when markets move sharply.
Coinbase is pursuing a similar product category
Nadex is not alone in pursuing equity-linked perpetual futures. Coinbase filed its own notice registration earlier this month as it seeks to list equity perpetual futures domestically, according to Faryar Shirzad, the company’s chief policy officer.
Shirzad said the effort would also require CFTC approval. The parallel moves by Coinbase and Nadex suggest that U.S. trading firms see an opening to bring a familiar crypto-market instrument into regulated securities and derivatives markets.
The competition is likely to focus as much on regulatory design as on product demand. Equity perps would need clear rules for pricing, margin, liquidation procedures and surveillance, particularly when the reference stocks trade only during set hours on national securities exchanges.
A contract may trade beyond regular stock-market hours, but the underlying shares do not necessarily provide a continuously updated reference price. That gap can produce wider spreads and more volatile pricing when company-specific news emerges overnight, during weekends or around market holidays.
For platforms, the challenge is to offer extended access without creating contracts that become difficult to value or close during thin trading periods. For traders, the products would require closer attention to collateral requirements and liquidation thresholds than a straightforward stock purchase.
Robinhood agreement adds another connection
The regulatory filing comes shortly after Robinhood reached an agreement with Crypto.com and OG.com to route a selection of event contracts through OG.com, beginning with football markets. Event contracts allow participants to take positions on whether a defined outcome will occur, such as the result of a sporting event.
Robinhood also agreed to acquire equity stakes in Crypto.com and OG.com following OG.com’s spin-off as an independent trading platform, according to the companies.
That arrangement links a mainstream retail brokerage with a group that is building out regulated derivatives infrastructure. Event contracts and security futures are different products, but both depend on trading, clearing and risk-management systems capable of handling short-duration or highly reactive markets.
Nadex’s CFTC registrations provide part of that infrastructure. A designated contract market may list derivatives for trading under federal oversight, while a derivatives clearing organization manages the clearing process that stands between market participants and helps ensure obligations are met.
A cautious route into round-the-clock markets
The push toward equity-related perpetual futures reflects growing interest in products that can respond to earnings releases, geopolitical events and other market-moving developments outside standard U.S. stock hours. Yet a filing or registration is only the first stage in a process that will likely draw close attention from both regulators.
The U.S. has allowed certain single-stock futures for years, but the category has never matched the scale of listed equity options. Perpetual futures would introduce a different trading model, one more closely associated with crypto derivatives venues and their continuous risk-management systems.
Nadex’s registration therefore places the company among the first firms trying to adapt that model for regulated U.S. equity markets. The next practical test will be whether the SEC and CFTC permit specific products to launch, and whether the resulting contracts can attract sufficient liquidity without exposing retail traders to poorly understood leverage risks.
Explore stock-linked derivatives further with Toobit’s tokenized equities guide and understand how traditional shares meet blockchain innovation.
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