Crypto policy and product development moved forward at the same time this week. Just days after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sent a crypto market rulemaking to the White House for review, and Coinbase asked the same agency to approve the first perpetual futures on individual U.S. stocks. Neither step is final, but together they show where American crypto regulation and trading products are heading while Congress remains stuck.
The CFTC Moves Ahead Without Congress
On September 17, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs received a CFTC submission titled "Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets." It is listed at the prerule stage, the earliest step in the process. The text has not been made public, and the CFTC declined to comment on its contents. Nothing takes effect until the commission votes on a proposal, publishes it and collects public comments.
The timing follows the Senate's failure to advance the CLARITY Act, which would have divided crypto oversight between the CFTC and the SEC and set registration requirements for trading platforms. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig had already signaled this backup route. In August, he told staff to prepare a crypto market structure framework built on the agency's existing authority in case legislation stalled.
Coinbase Files for Single-Stock Perpetuals
On Friday, Coinbase Derivatives filed with the CFTC for what the company calls the first set of single-stock perpetual futures in the United States, offering 24/5 exposure to individual equities. A perpetual contract has no expiration date. The filing uses an Apple contract as its model: cash-settled, no fixed expiry, trading from Sunday to Friday. The products are classified as security futures, which places them under the joint oversight of the CFTC and the SEC.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Coinbase is considering contracts on roughly 50 to 60 stocks, including Apple, Tesla, Microsoft and Nvidia, with trading targeted for later this year. Coinbase has offered stock perpetuals to eligible customers outside the U.S. since March. The U.S. filing is a request, not an approval, and terms could still change before any launch.
Why These Two Stories Belong Together
Both developments run through the same regulator. The CFTC is drafting a broader rulebook for crypto markets while also reviewing the first application of its kind for leveraged stock exposure from a crypto exchange. Clearer rules on how leveraged products can be offered to U.S. customers could give exchanges a firmer basis for launches like this one. The filing also reflects a wider blurring of the line between crypto and traditional markets, a trend that has driven recent SEC action on tokenized securities.
