Coinbase Promotes U.S. Listing of Stock Perpetual Contracts
Coinbase submitted a letter to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, requesting to clarify the boundaries between swaps and security-based swaps, and to explicitly classify stock perpetual derivatives as securities futures for listing on regulated venues in the U.S., rather than remaining offshore.
The letter is signed by Scott Bauguess and Julia Hueckel, and also requests the establishment of an alternative compliance framework, allowing exchanges under either commodities or securities systems to list event contracts related to securities. The company already has a designated contract market for commodity futures, Coinbase Derivatives, a futures commission merchant, Coinbase Financial Markets, and a securities broker, Coinbase Capital Markets. The U.S. has approved cryptocurrency perpetual-style futures by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and is collaborating with prediction market platforms to include cryptocurrency perpetuals in the domestic regulatory list; new underlying assets still need to be discussed on a case-by-case basis. Stock perpetuals are already open to non-U.S. qualified users: settled in USD stablecoins, trading all week, with no expiration date, single stock leverage up to about 10 times, and exchange-traded funds up to about 20 times, including Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google's parent company), Amazon, NVIDIA, Meta, Tesla, and some index funds. There are also pre-listing perpetuals, with SpaceX contracts having about 5 times leverage, and plans for themes like artificial intelligence and energy. U.S. users have seen index-style perpetual contracts available all week, with leverage up to about 20 times. The letter does not imply that the product has been approved for retail listing of single stock perpetuals in the U.S.
Who is buying and who is selling: The driving force is the jurisdictional competition, not that leverage can be used to buy Apple overnight across the U.S. The buyers want to trade stock risk all week on domestic platforms, while the sellers aim to move offshore perpetuals back to licensed exchanges. The beneficiaries are Coinbase, which holds both futures and brokerage licenses, while traditional brokers that still restrict stock leverage to time periods and margin accounts are under pressure. Funds are flowing from offshore perpetual transaction fees to U.S. regulated capital, with pricing power resting on who can write the definition of securities futures into the joint statement of the two commissions.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
The commercial essence of perpetual contracts is indefinite leverage plus funding rates, with a significant portion of global cryptocurrency transactions occurring on this track. Once stocks are subjected to the same framework, weekend earnings reports and macro gaps will become tradable volatility. Coinbase first runs the product offshore using stablecoins for settlement, then returns to request that stock perpetuals be classified as existing "securities futures," leveraging the established market to push for a separation of the two commissions.
The capital path involves the simultaneous application of spot stocks, tokenized stocks, index perpetuals, and pre-listing perpetuals, using stablecoins as margin. Money flows from leveraged transactions and forced liquidations into trading fees, with the risk being whether retail is allowed to enter single stock leverage of 10 times. The licensing matrix enables it to first engage in cryptocurrency perpetuals on the commodities side while waiting for definitions on the securities side.
The comparative objects are the offshore cryptocurrency perpetual-dominated transaction structure, the rolling of traditional stock index futures, and prediction market event contracts. The industry position is that the "everything exchange" is navigating regulatory challenges from cryptocurrency derivatives into stock leverage, expanding through offshore first-mover advantages, with control resting on the classification of securities futures.
Structural changes are regulatory changes. The mechanism is that when swaps and security-based swaps overlap, innovative products can only remain overseas; once classified as securities futures, domestic designated markets and brokers can list them according to existing rules, and the funding rate market will migrate from the crypto space to U.S. stock codes.
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