The US just got its first regulated Bitcoin perpetual futures contract, and the man who made it happen isn’t apologizing for it.
CFTC Chairman Michael Selig has been defending the agency’s decision to approve perpetual futures trading domestically, arguing that it’s better to build the new asset class at home than watch it flourish exclusively offshore. The approval of KalshiEX’s BTCPERP contract on May 29 marks the first true Bitcoin perpetual futures product on a regulated US market, and the first entirely new derivative type the CFTC has greenlit in over a decade.
What are perps, and why does this matter
Perpetual futures, or “perps,” are futures contracts with no expiration date. They’ve been the single most popular trading instrument in crypto for years, dominating volume on offshore exchanges like Binance and Bybit.
Selig’s position is straightforward: if the demand exists, and it clearly does, the US should be the one capturing it. He’s pointed to liquidity flowing to platforms in Asia, Europe, and the Bahamas as evidence that regulatory inaction has simply exported American trading volume rather than preventing it.
