U.S. just legalized crypto perpetual futures — Coinbase is first in line to capture the flood of new trading volume
The main U.S. derivatives regulator just gave the green light for crypto perpetual futures contracts to trade on American exchanges for the first time. Coinbase and prediction-market platform Kalshi are first in line to offer these products, which have until now only been available on offshore exchanges.
Idea
Perpetual futures are the most popular crypto trading product in the world — responsible for the vast majority of crypto trading volume globally — but they've never been legally available on U.S. platforms. The CFTC just changed that, and Coinbase is first in line with explicit regulatory approval. This opens a massive new revenue stream: perpetual futures generate enormous fee income for exchanges because traders hold positions around the clock, paying funding rates and trading fees continuously. Even though Bitcoin ETFs have seen outflows recently, this is a completely different story — it's about the trading platform and its ability to capture U.S. market share that currently flows to offshore exchanges. Coinbase's stock could re-rate higher as Wall Street models in this new business line.