Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Wenser（@wenser 2010）

On May 29, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued 7*24 trading regulatory guidelines, which emphasized that due to the characteristics of digital infrastructure and global continuous trading, crypto-asset-related derivatives are more suitable for around-the-clock trading and clearing.

This means that for the first time, the United States, which was previously regarded as a "crypto perpetual contract forbidden zone", has been liberalized. The United States has become the "crypto capital" and added fuel to the fire.

Many crypto trading platforms and traditional exchanges have caught wind of this trend and have launched corresponding trading portals.

The U.S. CFTC’s biggest gift to the crypto market: opening a 24/7 sustainable market

According to incomplete statistics,in 2025, the trading volume of crypto derivatives perpetual contracts will be between US$60 trillion and US$85 trillion, with the highest single-day trading volume reaching US$750 billion; accounting for approximately 75% to 80% of the total crypto trading volume. (Odaily Planet Daily Note: Kalshi issued an article said that the total transaction volume of this market in 2025 will exceed 90 trillion US dollars)

But for American encryption platforms, supervision has not given clear rules for this huge cake.

Now, the U.S. CFTC has officially opened this market with an original share of almost 0 to U.S. citizens and some domestic encryption platforms and CEM exchanges. At the same time, American institutions and individual users will also be able to seamlessly trade encrypted perpetual contracts 24/7 in the future, and the "time difference" in the past will no longer exist.

U.S. CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said that this is a historic step to "bring the world's most active crypto derivatives into the U.S. regulatory framework." Regulatory-level actions also quickly triggered the execution capabilities of top encryption platforms.

Direct beneficiaries of the new policy: Kalshi, Coinbase, CME

On the same day, the US CFTC issued a listing approval order to the designated contract market KalshiEX, LLC, agreeing that it will list and trade the perpetual contract BTCPERP, which refers to the Bitcoin spot price, as a futures product. The contract was submitted for approval under CFTC Regulation 40.3 on May 29, 2026. In addition, Kalshi plans to launch more than ten crypto perpetual contracts in the future.

In addition, Coinbase announced that it has become the first and currently the only futures commission merchant (FCM) regulated by the U.S. CFTC, providing U.S. customers with access to the global crypto derivatives market, including crypto perpetual contracts and options (connected to platforms such as Deribit, whose open interest in Bitcoin options exceeds $31 billion); at the same time, Coinbase It has also been approved to use customer crypto assets/stable coins as margin (with conditions for reuse rights).

Finally, CME (CME Group), a traditional trading platform, is also a direct beneficiary of this policy change. Bitcoin futures and options on its Globex platform will switch to 7*24 trading starting from this Friday, ending the previous fixed closing arrangement from Friday to Sunday. Institutional customers can seamlessly hedge spot fluctuations.

However, this does not mean that trading volume will suddenly rise - although the "CME gap" previously formed due to the weekend closure has ended, market liquidity is still mainly concentrated in ETF options and offshore perpetual contracts; the size of IBIT options open interest is significantly higher than the CME crypto options market. At present, the short positions of large traders continue to decline, and short-term short pressure has weakened, but the long layout has not yet formed a clear trend.

The cautious attitude behind the US CFTC’s statement of guidance: commodity differences and strengthening the authority of power

Yesterday, in addition to issuing a "No-Action Letter" to the Coinbase platform, the relevant departments of the US CFTC also specifically emphasized two things:

1. Due to regional and transaction structure characteristics, traditional commodity derivatives such as agricultural products may not be suitable for full 24/7 operation;
2. Regulated trading platforms, swap execution facilities, derivatives clearing houses and futures brokers must comply with the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and relevant regulatory rules and proactively assess risk management and operational arrangements when expanding around-the-clock trading.

In other words, 7*24-hour perpetual trading of commodities such as agricultural products is not currently allowed; and any institution that wants to open 7*24-hour trading of derivatives must communicate with CFTC staff in advance and submit a detailed plan and risk analysis, and the CFTC will review compliance on a case-by-case basis.

It can be seen that the US CFTC's move is more like a "special deal" for crypto assets, opening the door for more crypto platforms to open derivatives sectors and further strengthening its authority in the supervision of crypto asset derivatives.

Comments from industry insiders: overwhelming appreciation and support

The regulatory guidelines of the US CFTC represent that crypto derivatives in the US market have truly realized localized all-weather trading. The liquidity of many local users who have been excluded from the US market in the past is expected to quickly return, further increasing the participation and capital efficiency of local institutions, and reducing risk management costs (rolling costs, weekend time gaps) to a certain extent.

Strategy founder Michael Saylor said that the CFTC guidance promotes the development of the Bitcoin capital market, including all-weather trading, BTC collateral, perpetual futures, options and regulated access. This will benefit BTC holders, provide support for MSTR development, and support the development of STRC as a Bitcoin-backed digital credit.

Coinbase CEO Brian Amstrong cheered: "U.S. users have always been excluded from this 80% of the global crypto market (including perpetual futures and options). But now it is different!"

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said, "This marks Kalshi's evolution from a prediction market leader to a next-generation derivatives exchange. U.S.-based, secure and regulated perpetual contracts will improve capital allocation and risk management for countless U.S. businesses."

It is understandable that the beneficiary made such a statement, but some outsiders interpreted it as "opening a Pandora's box of speculation."

U.S. third-party public welfare organization: CFTC disregards public interests and investor protection

Better Markets, a third-party consumer protection organization established after the 2008 financial crisis, officially issued a statement, "Retail investors are unlikely to fully understand the risks posed by perpetual futures. We urged the CFTC last year to require enhanced disclosures that are easier for retail investors to understand. But unfortunately, the CFTC not only failed to require such enhanced disclosures, but also seemed to completely ignore the risks faced by the products it approved."

"This action by the CFTC is unbecoming of a regulator. However, it is not surprising considering that Coinbase and Kalshi serve on two of the CFTC's advisory committees. It is clear that the CFTC's work is not in the public interest or to protect investors, but rather for the industries it is supposed to regulate."

The rhetoric directly pointed out that there may be interest transfer or internal cooperation to some extent between the US CFTC, Coinbase and Kalshi.

The U.S. market will usher in an explosion of derivatives trading

In addition to the direct beneficiaries mentioned above, the U.S. crypto exchange Kraken also stated that it plans to launch the first perpetual futures product regulated by the U.S. CFTC in the U.S. market within the next 30 days. Currently, perpetual futures on Kraken Pro are provided by NinjaTrader Clearing, LLC (operating under the name Kraken Derivatives US), which is a CFTC-registered futures commission merchant; related spot margin and perpetual futures products will be provided on Bitnomial Exchange (Odaily Planet Daily Note: The latter is an exchange regulated by the CFTC and has recently been acquired by Kraken parent company Payward).

Putting aside polarizing comments, the door to the multi-trillion dollar perpetual derivatives market is slowly opening to American users.