Coinbase, Five Firms Back CFTC Authority Over Single-Stock Perpetuals

Six U.S. crypto and financial firms, including Coinbase, have applied to file an amicus brief supporting the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's authority to regulate single-stock perpetual futures in the United States. Cointelegraph reported the filing on November 10.

The group is not a casual coalition. It spans the market's major constituencies: Coinbase, the Kalshi prediction-market platform, Payward, the trading firm DRW, Jump Trading, and the investment firm Paradigm. Together they asked the court to recognize the CFTC's regulatory authority over a product that sits squarely between two regulatory worlds.

An amicus brief is a filing from a party not directly involved in a lawsuit. It gives a court legal views or context the litigants themselves may not supply. Here, the six firms jointly argued that the CFTC's authority over the product should be recognized, putting industry weight behind the derivatives regulator in a live legal fight.

What are single-stock perpetual futures?

The product is exactly what the name suggests. It is a derivative tied to the share price of one specific company, but unlike a standard futures contract, it has no fixed expiration date. The structure imports the perpetual futures model — a staple of crypto trading venues — and applies it to individual equities.

That hybrid design is the legal crux. A contract referencing a single stock looks, on its face, like a security derivative. Yet the perpetual structure and its crypto-native lineage point toward the CFTC's corner of the market, where the agency already oversees futures and swaps on broad indices and commodities.

Why does the industry care?

The six filers are not disinterested observers. The group includes crypto exchanges, prediction-market platforms, trading firms and investment companies — businesses that would list, trade or provide liquidity for single-stock perpetuals if the regulatory path cleared. Their joint position: the CFTC's framework is where this product belongs.

For the exchanges, CFTC jurisdiction would mean listing under an existing derivatives regime rather than navigating securities registration. For trading firms like DRW and Jump Trading, it would define the rulebook for market-making in the product. For Paradigm, an investor in crypto-market infrastructure, it clarifies which portfolio companies face which regulator.

The report did not disclose the specific details of the lawsuit or the full arguments laid out in the amicus brief, so the precise legal contours remain thin in public view.

What does this change for the case?

In the near term, not much — and that is normal. An amicus brief does not bind a court. It can, however, shape how judges frame the question before them, particularly when a broad, cross-sector group speaks with one voice.

What impact the filing will have on the court's ruling in the lawsuit over single-stock perpetual futures will only become clearer in later proceedings. The six firms have now put their position on the record. The court has not signaled how it weighs their submission.

The stakes extend past one case. A ruling that confirms CFTC authority over single-stock perpetuals would open a template for other crypto-style products grafted onto traditional assets. A ruling the other way would push the product toward securities regulators and, in practice, toward offshore venues that already list similar contracts.

For now, the industry has chosen its side. The next milestone is the court's response as the case proceeds.