Coinbase seeks approval to list equity perps

Coinbase has taken an initial step toward bringing 24/7 stock-linked perpetual futures to the United States, filing a notice registration form with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to chief policy officer Faryar Shirzad. The proposal would create “equity perps” — perpetual futures contracts tied to individual stocks — on a regulated U.S. venue, though the company would also need Commodity Futures Trading Commission approval before trading could begin.

Shirzad said in a Sept. 3 post on X that the filing was submitted earlier this week. Coinbase has not announced a launch date, eligible stocks, margin requirements, or the precise structure of the proposed U.S. contracts.

The filing places Coinbase at the intersection of two rapidly converging markets: traditional equities trading and the perpetual-futures products that have become a major source of activity on offshore cryptocurrency platforms. If approved, the contracts would give U.S. traders a way to take leveraged long or short positions in stock prices around the clock without buying the shares themselves.

A push to bring stock perps onshore

Perpetual futures are derivatives with no set expiry date. Unlike standard futures, which settle on a defined future date, perpetuals remain open as long as traders maintain their positions and meet collateral requirements. Exchanges typically use periodic funding payments between long and short traders to help keep a contract’s price close to that of the underlying asset.

The products are well established in cryptocurrency markets, where bitcoin and ethereum perpetuals often trade continuously. Applying that format to listed companies would extend the same model to equities, whose underlying cash markets generally follow set trading hours.

Coinbase already offers stock-linked perpetual contracts outside the United States. The company launched those products in March for international users, with contracts tied to companies including Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Amazon. A domestic approval would bring a version of that offering into a more restrictive U.S. regulatory setting, where securities and commodity derivatives oversight can overlap.

The SEC filing alone does not authorize the product. Shirzad said Coinbase also requires clearance from the CFTC, which oversees U.S. futures markets. That dual-track process may determine whether equity perpetuals can be offered as a regulated domestic alternative to offshore venues rather than remaining primarily a feature of foreign platforms.

Regulators have already considered crypto perps

U.S. regulators have recently shown a willingness to examine perpetual contracts within existing derivatives frameworks. In May, CFTC staff permitted bitcoin perpetual futures contracts to be listed in the United States by KalshiEX and Coinbase, according to the agency’s actions at the time.

That decision addressed crypto-linked perpetuals, not contracts based on individual public companies. Yet it provided a practical test for whether a product traditionally associated with offshore cryptocurrency exchanges could operate under U.S. market rules.

The CFTC followed in June with a request for comment on crude-oil perpetual contracts and 24/7 trading. The consultation suggested the agency was considering broader questions raised by expiry-free futures, including how continuously traded derivatives should function when the underlying reference market may be closed.

Equity perpetuals would sharpen those questions. Apple or NVIDIA shares trade during defined U.S. exchange sessions, while a perpetual contract linked to those shares could potentially trade overnight and through weekends. During those periods, traders would be pricing anticipated news, earnings, macroeconomic developments, and the next opening move in the underlying stock.

That could make the products useful for hedging exposure outside regular market hours, but it could also produce wider price gaps during illiquid periods. The operational design — including reference pricing, funding calculations, collateral rules and limits on leverage — would be central to how such contracts perform in practice.

Competition from offshore markets

Coinbase’s proposal arrives as platforms built around perpetual trading seek routes into the U.S. market. Hyperliquid, a decentralized perpetuals platform that has drawn significant attention across crypto markets, has been mentioned in recent discussions about bringing similar activity onshore.

President Donald Trump said last month at the White House that CFTC chair Michael Selig was working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a “fully compliant and legal fashion.” Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Hyperliquid Labs was exploring an onshore move through a deal with Payward, the parent company of Kraken.

Those developments point to growing pressure on U.S. regulators and trading venues to decide how perpetual products should fit within domestic rules. Offshore exchanges have long offered 24/7 derivatives on digital assets and, increasingly, tokenized or stock-linked instruments. A regulated U.S. market for equity perpetuals could direct some of that demand toward venues subject to federal supervision and established customer-protection requirements.

Ondo cites existing law

Ondo Finance added another legal argument to the debate in a public letter released Sept. 3. The company argued that a federal law enacted in 2000 already permits continuous derivatives products and directs agencies to apply existing statutory authority rather than develop a separate rulebook for perpetual contracts.

The letter adds to a widening industry effort to frame perpetuals as an extension of established futures markets rather than a new category requiring entirely new legislation. Regulators will ultimately have to decide whether stock-linked contracts can meet standards for market integrity, clearing, surveillance and customer safeguards while trading continuously.

Coinbase’s filing does not settle those questions, but it gives the proposal a formal regulatory path. The next decisions from the SEC and CFTC will determine whether U.S. traders can access equity perpetuals through domestic futures markets, or whether the most active versions of those products remain concentrated outside the country.