CFTC Relief Turns Coinbase’s 25-Year Index Futures Perpetual

US futures exchanges can now remove the expiration date from their perpetual-style stock index futures after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission granted no-action relief, Financemagnates reported. The change converts contracts Coinbase Derivatives listed with expiries running as far as 25 years into genuine perpetuals.

The relief came from the CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight in response to an October 1 request from Coinbase. It is available to any designated contract market, but only for futures tied to broad-based security indices, the category that includes benchmarks such as the S&P 500. A second report on the same relief and its conditions came from Cryptobriefing.

Also read: CFTC Registers Coinbase Clearing LLC, Completing Derivatives Stack

Key facts

• The Division of Market Oversight granted no-action relief in response to Coinbase’s October 1 request, according to Financemagnates.
• Cryptobriefing identifies the relief as Staff Letter No. 26-19, dated June 12, 2026, and names Bitnomial as a second applicant alongside Coinbase Derivatives.
• KalshiEX asked the CFTC on August 18 to review a broad-based stock index perpetual; that contract was deemed approved on October 2.
• Eligible contracts carry expiries as long as 25 years, and the division’s positions on the relief expire on October 20.
• Coinbase, Kalshi and Kraken parent Payward filed in September for perpetuals on individual stocks and exchange-traded funds, which Financemagnates listed as pending approval.

Conditions attached to the conversion

Perpetual futures hold their price close to the underlying asset through periodic funding payments rather than an expiry date. The division described that mechanism as one that grew up mostly on offshore venues, and Coinbase’s decision to list long-dated contracts was shaped by what the letter calls regulatory uncertainty over how perpetuals should be classified in the US.

Several of the affected contracts carry open interest, and the letter concentrates its caution there. Staff wrote that altering a term as material as the expiry date can move prices, leaving some holders with losses and others with gains, and added that it “may be impossible to anticipate” the effect on price discovery and hedging. Before converting a contract, an exchange must ask traders holding open positions about possible harm, give at least five calendar days’ notice and allow them to close out under the old terms. It must also provide risk disclosures and change nothing besides the expiry date.

Also read: Kalshi bans George Santos for life over State of the Union bets, fines him $71,356

In exchange, the division said it will not recommend enforcement for making the amendments effective immediately, removing the 10-business-day wait that normally applies to self-certified rule changes under Regulation 40.6. Staff also said they would not seek a stay of those certifications; a stay would have given the agency another 90 days of review and opened a 30-day comment period. Exchanges must still file the amendments under Regulation 40.6(a) or 40.5, name the contracts and certify compliance.

Why it matters

The letter lets exchanges that built workaround products move their existing listings, users and open positions onto a true perpetual structure rather than starting fresh listings. The scope stays narrow, though: relief is limited to broad-based indices, and products on single stocks and exchange-traded funds remain outside it. Trading volume in perpetuals is dominated by venues outside US regulation, and Kraken put annual crypto perpetuals volume at more than $60 trillion in 2025 when it rolled out CFTC-regulated perpetuals on Kraken Pro in June.

Two records of the relief diverge. Financemagnates dates the letter to October 5, 2026 and ties it to Coinbase alone; Cryptobriefing dates it to June 12, 2026 under the identifier Staff Letter No. 26-19 and reports that Bitnomial asked for relief covering 16 contracts while Coinbase Derivatives requested coverage for 22. Cryptobriefing also reports that only contracts tied to digital commodities with deep, active and continuous spot markets qualify, and that the relief expires on June 30, 2026, while Financemagnates reports an October 20 expiry. Neither figure can be confirmed from the other report.

The letter binds only the Division of Market Oversight, not the Commission, and staff kept the right to change or withdraw its positions. CME Group took a different route, launching 77 single-stock futures in July that require periodic rollovers.

What to watch

The amendment filings themselves are the next visible step: exchanges must submit them under Regulation 40.6(a) or 40.5 and certify that every condition was met. The division’s stated positions lapse on October 20, and the pending September applications for perpetuals on individual stocks and exchange-traded funds remain unresolved.

Written by

Emily Torres

Emily Torres covers cryptocurrency and decentralized finance for StockPil, tracking blockchain markets and regulatory developments.

Sources: Finance Magnates, Cryptobriefing