Kalshi seeks CFTC approval for stock perpetuals

Kalshi filed for U.S. stock and ETF perpetual futures with 23-hour weekday trading as CFTC approval and a Nov. 2 start remain pending.

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Kalshi has filed with the SEC and CFTC on September 18 to list U.S. stock and ETF-linked perpetual futures, proposing 23-hour weekday trading and a 15.50% minimum customer margin.

Summary

• Kalshi filed stock perpetual rules with regulators, while CFTC approval remains pending after September 18.
• Proposed contracts would trade from Sunday evening through Friday, with daily one-hour maintenance windows scheduled.
• Kalshi proposes 15.50% minimum customer margin and cash settlement through its registered Kalshi Klear clearinghouse.
• CFTC records list Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, SPY and QQQ perpetuals awaiting approval currently.
• Coinbase and Bitnomial submitted competing stock perpetual proposals on September 18 under separate regulatory processes.

The SEC filing says the contracts would have no preset expiration date and would be treated as security futures products, while the CFTC has not approved Kalshi’s proposal. The regulator’s public product database still listed Kalshi’s equity perpetual submissions as “Approval Pending (45)” on September 20.

Kalshi’s proposed Rule 14.11 sets trading from 6:00 p.m. ET on Sunday through 5:00 p.m. ET on Friday, with a daily maintenance window from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET. The SEC notice says trading would stop during required regulatory halts affecting the underlying security, while Kalshi could set different hours for a particular contract when its rules permit.

The same SEC filing says the perpetual security futures would settle in cash. Funding payments would be exchanged at the daily settlement time, normally 4:00 p.m. ET when the regular U.S. equity session closes. Kalshi’s rule text sets a 0.002% deadband for small pricing differences and a maximum funding magnitude of 2.00%, while its customer-margin rule requires at least 15.50% of the current market value of each position.

Kalshi Klear would clear every perpetual security-futures transaction under the proposal, according to the SEC filing. The rule text uses a standard contract unit equal to 100 shares of the underlying security, although trading can use smaller permitted units under Kalshi’s specifications.

CFTC records now list separate Kalshi submissions for AAPL, TSLA, MSFT, NVDA, AMZN, SPY and QQQ perpetuals, among other equity-linked contracts filed September 18. Each of those records remained in “Approval Pending (45)” status when checked September 20, so none of the listed stock or fund perpetuals has CFTC clearance yet.

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CFTC approval and a November 2 date remain ahead

Kalshi’s SEC filing states that the proposed rule change “will become effective on November 2, 2026, or such later date” as CFTC regulations permit. The SEC’s rulemaking page says public comments are due 21 days after publication in the Federal Register, but the agency had not posted a fixed comment deadline on its page as of September 20.

The SEC separately acknowledged Kalshi’s Form 1-N registration on September 8, allowing the CFTC-designated contract market to notice-register as a national securities exchange for the limited purpose of security futures. The September 18 filing supplies the product rules Kalshi wants to use for perpetual security futures, while CFTC approval remains a separate condition.

Kalshi’s proposed listing standards restrict which securities can serve as underliers. The SEC filing requires an estimated deliverable supply above 20 million shares, market capitalization of at least $100 billion and average daily transaction value of at least $450 million over the prior six months. A security listed for less than six months would need at least $1 billion in average daily transaction value over the prior month, while the rules separately require public float of at least 7 million shares.

The SEC filing gives the Commission another control after effectiveness. It says the SEC, after consulting with the CFTC, may summarily abrogate the rule change within 60 days of its effective date and require Kalshi to refile it under a different Exchange Act process.

Coinbase and Bitnomial filed competing stock-perpetual plans

SEC records show Coinbase Derivatives filed its own security-futures rule change on September 18, the same day as Kalshi. The CFTC database lists Coinbase’s “Single Stock Perpetual Futures Contract” as “Approval Pending (45),” while the SEC filing states that the CFTC had not yet approved Coinbase’s proposal.

As crypto.news reported in its Coinbase stock-perpetual filing coverage, Coinbase had already filed notice registrations earlier in September before submitting the product proposal. The SEC’s September 18 notice covers cash-settled futures on individual equities and exchange-traded fund shares, including perpetual single-stock futures.

Bitnomial Exchange filed a separate SEC proposal on September 18 covering security-futures listing standards, customer margin and related rules. CFTC records show 10 Bitnomial stock perpetual submissions in pending status, including AAPL, MSFT, NVDA, TSLA, AMZN, AVGO, MU, GOOGL and PLTR contracts.

Bitnomial’s SEC filing proposes a 24/5 weekly session from Sunday evening through Friday and a 15.25% minimum initial and maintenance customer-margin floor. The same filing says one standard contract represents 100 shares, funding would be calculated three times daily, and the exchange would halt a stock perpetual whenever the primary listing exchange halts the underlying security.

In related coverage, crypto.news reported that Payward planned to use Bitnomial’s regulated infrastructure for U.S. perpetual products, subject to regulatory approval. The company’s September plan named Bitnomial Exchange and Bitnomial Clearinghouse as the regulated entities handling listing, clearing and settlement.

Kalshi’s Bitcoin perp approval faces a separate court challenge

The CFTC approved Kalshi’s BTCPERP contract on May 29 after reviewing it as a futures contract tied to Bitcoin’s spot price. In its approval release, the Commission cautioned that perpetual contract design “may not be suitable for all asset classes” and encouraged exchanges to seek Commission review for perpetuals referencing assets outside the Bitcoin order.

Kalshi launched its CFTC-approved Bitcoin perpetual contract in early June. Kalshi has since listed other crypto and precious-metals perpetual products, while the September stock filings use the joint SEC-CFTC security-futures process because their underliers are securities. Kalshi Bitcoin perpetual launch coverage

A separate federal case remains pending over the CFTC’s Bitcoin perpetual decision. The docket in Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. v. Selig shows CME sued the CFTC and Chairman Michael Selig on June 18, arguing that the May 29 Bitcoin order and related perpetual-contract policy should be vacated. The lawsuit concerns the classification of the Bitcoin perpetual and the CFTC policy statement; it does not constitute a ruling on Kalshi’s September 18 stock-perpetual applications.

The federal docket shows the CFTC moved to dismiss the case on September 2, and no merits ruling had been issued by the latest docket update reviewed. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s September 8 schedule gives CME until October 2 to respond, sets an October 16 reply deadline, requires discovery by November 13 and sets cross-motions for November 20, with later amicus and response deadlines in December.

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