CME sued the CFTC to void its Bitcoin perpetual futures approvals — the first federal challenge to the regulator's authority to bring Bitcoin perps to U.S. exchanges
On June 18, CME Group filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to void two CFTC approvals: the May 29 order authorizing Kalshi to list BTCPERP, a Bitcoin perpetual futures contract, and a companion policy statement that permitted Coinbase Financial Markets to route domestic customers into offshore perpetual books under Futures Commission Merchant supervision. CME argues that perpetual futures — contracts with no expiration date that use funding-rate mechanics to track spot prices — qualify as swaps under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which would subject them to separate clearing, reporting, and trading-venue requirements the CFTC did not apply. Kalshi's BTCPERP accumulated more than $3 billion in volume during beta testing. CEO Terrence Duffy, who said CME had spent eight months building the case, called the approvals "a disaster waiting to happen." CFTC Chair Michael Selig, who championed both decisions as a way to bring offshore perpetuals under domestic oversight, called the suit "frivolous."
The case will determine whether CFTC-regulated perpetual Bitcoin futures can trade domestically under futures rules — or must instead be cleared and traded as swaps under the Dodd-Frank framework that has governed the off-exchange derivatives market since 2010.
